


Of Gods and Men

by mumuinc



Series: Gods and Men [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, God-mode Harry Potter, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Horcrux Hunting, M/M, Magically Powerful Harry Potter, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Master of Death Harry Potter, Sirius/Harry is endgame, Slow Burn, Sorry Drarry fans I love you but I went over to the Dark Side, Suicide, Time Travel, all while eviscerating Snape, redeeming all the junior Death Eaters if I can, sorry people he's just not a good egg in this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:40:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 33
Words: 175,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25836640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mumuinc/pseuds/mumuinc
Summary: This was it. What he had been waiting for, the chance to undo all the wrong wrought of his life since the war ended nineteen years ago.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Sirius Black/Harry Potter
Series: Gods and Men [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1976254
Comments: 363
Kudos: 789
Collections: Finished faves, Primus Inter Pares





	1. Chapter 1

This was it. What he had been waiting for, the chance to undo all the wrong wrought of his life since the war ended nineteen years ago.

For a moment, all he could do was stare at the intricate golden rods and cogs that made up the Time Turner. He couldn’t imagine that such a tiny piece of magical artifact could possibly undo an event so massive, that years and years later, the Wizarding community of Britain still felt the aftershocks of the cataclysm that was the Second Wizarding War.

There’d been no shortage of attempts at correcting the injustice, the bigotry, the learned helplessness, the sheer idiocy, that had led to the war. People were helping each other now. They were working with each other. There were no winners or losers in a war, only survivors, and survivors had deep scars, and even longer memories. Too much had been lost. Too much sacrificed on the altar of preserving the fabric of reality of Magical Britain.

In the immediate aftermath, there had been movements to reorganize the Ministry, such that a magical coup of which Voldemort held all the strings that manipulated every moving part would never again succeed in any such attempt. The politicians, some of whom, like Kinglsey Shacklebolt, had been forced to assume the mantle of leading this fledgling new Ministry, worked tirelessly for days, weeks, months even, to rehabilitate the outdated laws. The teachers of Hogwarts, those who survived anyway, instituted massive curriculum changes, so that the youth of Wizarding Britain learned tolerance instead of bigotry. Minerva McGonagall fired off passionate speeches to the Wizengamot and the Hogwarts Board of Governors to gain support in instituting these massive changes to the Hogwarts curriculum. Griselda Marchbanks headed the Winzengamot herself into passing laws that abolished the legal loopholes that allowed Purebloods to insulate their young from the progressive views taught at Hogwarts. The Pureblood themselves, headed surprisingly by a strident-voiced Draco Malfoy, wanted no part of the perpetuation of the Pureblood agenda.

It should have been a shining, golden path towards progress, one the survivors of war could be proud of when they looked back, years later, at how the freshness and zeal of idealism paved the way to progress, the modernity of views of what has, for hundreds of years, been a backward, decaying social structure, riddled with archaic beliefs and anachronistic infrastructure. It would have been wonderful, if only enough of them had survived to reap the benefits.

As it stood now, magical Britain’s population numbered in less than the tens of thousands. By all realistic estimations, the population of wizards and witches on the British Isles would go extinct in less than twenty five years, if they didn’t somehow manage to kill themselves all over again through the rise of another dark lord.

Worse still was the decay of magic itself. It was the Purebloods who had reported it first. Daphne Greengrass had seen magic consume her sister before her very eyes. Her parents had assured her, and Astoria’s distraught husband, Draco Malfoy, that it had been a blood curse, for which there was no cure.

But the magical child that had been the result of that union, Scorpius, was himself consumed not long after, the two year old too young or too weak to withstand the blood curse that flowed in his veins.

St Mungo’s called it a freak accident of nature. Draco Malfoy had gone to the Department of Mysteries, because it could not have been an accident. Scorpius, when he was born, had been pronounced free of the curse.

And then other peculiar things started happening. Wizards, previously powerful and learned, started to either lose their magic entirely, until they were no more magical than a Squib, or grow in power until they themselves became consumed by their magic.

At first, the Ministry identified it as something that was something of a Pureblood affliction. After all, the Purebloods were all somehow inter-related. Perhaps it was something in their blood that was killing them out, one by one.

But then it started happening to the Muggleborns too. The first to die was Dennis Creevey. The magical consumption that ate him so powerful, it blasted through the entire block of his Muggle neighborhood.

By the time the fifth year anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts came, there were less than ten new witches and wizards for the Sorting. Many have either died of the consumption, or have had their magic siphoned out before their Hogwarts letters could even be drafted.

The Ministry could offer no answers. The Department of Mysteries kept mum on whatever findings they had studying Astoria and Scorpius Malfoy.

There was no panic or pandemonium of the sort that had been seen during the last two Wizarding wars. There was hardly any population left to instigate a panic. Now, it was only despair and resignation. Magical Britain would die out, and there was to be no help for it.

Saul Croaker published the first of the findings as the Department Head of the DoM. The Unspeakables have found that the magical blast between Harry Potter’s wand, and the Elder Wand as wielded by its non-rightful owner, Voldemort, created a vacuum in the fabric of magic, one that siphoned the magical core on humans and magical creatures alike, and created unstable fields of power on those remaining.

Closed door meetings between the Department of Mysteries and the Minister for Magic started happening more and more as the death toll and the Squib toll climbed.

By the time Croaker himself succumbed to the magical consumption, the Ministry was at a loss for how to contain it.

Now, the desperation has reached a fever pitch. There was no solution; there was no more moving forward.

Until Theodore Nott was arrested at the grounds of Malfoy Manor. Draco Malfoy cooperated fully with the Auror Corps but the only thing found on Nott’s person was a broken Time Turner, which Draco confirmed his father, Lucius, had been working on in the early days after the war, ostensibly, Draco theorized, in an attempt to jump back into the past to prevent the defeat of He Who Must Not Be Named.

The Time Turner’s discovery proved to be the catalyst to reinvigorate the attempts in finding a solution to the Magical Consumption. Yes, it was broken, but with the right minds working on fixing it, there was hope now. Maybe not to find a cure for the Consumption, but to stem the root of its cause, the Battle of Hogwarts.

Unspeakable J, the person leading the project, worked tirelessly with Draco to fix the Time Turner. The magic that had into fixing the tiny golden bauble was such Draco had never before seen, perhaps never would see again, as he noted the mild twitch of the Unspeakable’s gloved hands as he handled the artifact gingerly.

“Does it work now?” Draco dared to ask, his voice barely a hushed whisper, in the Department of Mysteries’ Time Room.

“Yes.” The Unspeakable’s magically altered voice sounded like nails rasping on dry wall.

Draco had spent so much time in the Time Room that he would not have been able to keep track of the passing of days in the magically lit chamber, deep in the bowels of the Ministry of Magic. And if he spent as much time as Unspeakable J did on the project, he would probably have to be buried and mummified within the Time Room’s drab, featureless gray walls.

“But..?” he couldn’t help but wheedle out. In the four years since the Magical Consumption had taken root, there had never been a foolproof solution to humans meddling with Time magic. Perhaps that may have been true for all eternity. Saul Croaker had made this clear in the papers he’d published before he passed. There had to be a catch now.

“But the amount of power required to effect a jump so far in time as to prevent the Battle of Hogwarts is so massive, any one healthy magical core would be consumed in the process.”

Draco couldn’t suppress the despairing sigh that escaped him. “So we are doomed anyway.”

The Unspeakable’s fingers twitched again, as if he could not prevent the frailty of his shuffling mortal coil. “Perhaps…” He reached to pick up and cradle the Time Turner in his hands, as if it were something precious, and maybe, it probably was. It was the one solution left remaining to the impasse that was the dying out of magical Britain.

Draco blinked as he thought the magic that obscured the Unspeakable’s face seemed to flicker for a moment, and he caught sight of parchment white pale skin, and the shadow of dark hair. That shouldn’t have happened, he knew, unless…

“You have it too, don’t you? The Consumption?” He remembered years ago, working with Croaker, and how the man’s magic was so unstable, he’d been unable to maintain the magic required to cloak his Unspeakable persona in secrecy.

“Yes,” Unspeakable J replied. “It isn’t the siphoning of magic.”

Draco nodded, horror and what he’d long thought of as memories of a wife and child he’d buried flashing before his eyes, in the same way that he caught flashes now, of the Unspeakable’s face, dark hair, the glint of glass in the meager light. “Potter?”

The hood of the cloak shrouding Unspeakable J’s head slipped and fell, and the glamour that masked Harry Potter’s pale skin and feverishly bright green eyes shattered. Draco gasped as he took in the face of his one-time childhood rival, and the Saviour of the Wizarding World, the Savior who’d been left with nothing but survivors to carry on with his sad, lonely existence. Harry Potter’s face, while papery thin and gaunt from exhaustion, looked unbelievably like he had not aged a day beyond seventeen, when he had defeated the Dark Lord.

A weary smile touched the tired, bloodless lips as Potter noted Draco’s astonishment over his unchanging features. His eyes, before a vibrant, lively green, sparkling with mischief or anger or teenage angst, now glowed unnaturally bright, feverishly so, against the stark paleness of his face, the roughness of his beard. He truly looked exactly as Draco remembered him on that sordid fateful day when everything Draco had known of the magical world had come crashing around his ears.

He swallowed with difficulty. “How—Astoria looked nothing like this when she died.”

Potter’s glowing eyes did not so much as blink. With the rough gauntness of his unnaturally young features, and the strange light in his eyes, so bright it looked like the sinister glow of the Killing Curse, Potter looked not like a man but an avenging god.

“Do you know anything of Muggle Physics, Malfoy?” Potter said, and his speaking voice sounded no different than the magically altered voice of his glamour, dry and cracking and papery thin.

Draco blinked. “You mean like gravity and the Law of Mass Conservation?” He wasn’t an idiot. Knowing the level of magical theory that he did required that he understood the physical laws that governed the physical world. Wizards were no different to Muggles in that respect — both were governed by the laws of the physical world. Magic just created a backdoor to make things Muggle thought impossible possible. But backdoors, even ones as fantastical as magic, inevitably led to the same places. The Law of Mass Conservation, translated into magic, was nothing more than Gamp’s Laws on Elemental Transfiguration.

“Yes. The Law of Energy Conservation is one that governs both physical and magical worlds,” Potter said in that raspy, thin teenage voice of his. “Energy can’t be created; it can only be transferred or transmuted. The same with magic.”

Draco stared and stared some more. If magic could only be transmuted— “You’re the one holding all of the siphoned magic,” he gasped. The enormity of his discovery was astounding. But if Potter held all of the magic that had been lost, then that meant…

“I have to die to release it,” Potter said quietly in answer to his questions. “But I can’t. I’ve tried, Malfoy, and I can’t.”

“What do you mean you can’t?” Draco cried, his voice rising as realization dawned that ,fuck, this man, this impossible creature, was the one who had stolen his wife from him! The one who had caused his son’s death!

“I mean I can’t!” Potter yelled back, jerking back from the stiff, unyielding wooden chair and causing it to crash back. “Don’t you think I’ve tried it, Malfoy? My family is dead! Every single one of them! My parents, my godfather, my fucking friends died in the war and the Consumption killed my wife and all of my fucking children! I’ve tried killing myself countless times, more than you can imagine and every single fucking time, I wake up on the floor of this fucking room like I’m some magical fucking fixture no different from that fucking giant hourglass you see behind you! What the fuck else do you think I’ve tried doing to stop this?! I don’t have anything left, and I still. Can’t. DIE!”

It was as if all the air had been sucked out of the room at the explosion of Potter’s anger, his anguish. Draco couldn’t see it before, but now, with the slowly seeping knowledge of immortality that faced Potter, an immortality that consumed everything and everyone he loved, leaving him with nothing but his anger, his bitterness, his hatred for what he had become—this shell of a man, young of body, aging of mind, tethered together by an unfathomable desperate loneliness so deep and vast, it would drive a person of perhaps lesser constitution to the absolutely brink of madness, he could see it, that endless abyssal void in too too green eyes. There was nothing left in the husk of Harry Potter’s humanity, nothing but magic and this strange undeath that chilled Draco beyond even the most esoteric of Dark Arts he had ever read.

Potter was tugging at his wild hair now, tangled and matted and unruly and just _wild_ as it had been on the day of the Battle. “If you think I haven’t tried offing myself at every fucking opportunity I’ve had…” He heaved another one of his rattling rasping breaths as the thin shoulders shrouded in the Unspeakable gray robe seemed to quiver with every breath he drew. “It was the Killing Curse first.” His voice was toneless, dead, like his eyes. “I’d survived it twice, but that was by fluke of the prophecy and Voldemort’s dark magic.”

Draco couldn’t rip his eyes away from the phantasmagorical display of the horror that passed through Potter’s face as he spoke in that dead voice.

“It was over after the battle, I thought. Voldemort’s final Killing Curse killing that tiny piece of his soul that lodged against mine, instead of killing _me_. That was how we thought it would be, me and Ron and Hermione, bless their souls, they shouldn’t have had to die in that pisstake of a war. I soldiered on, you know, because that’s what I’ve always done. Move on when the people I love have left me. I thought I would be honoring their memory if I continued on with my life.

“I became an Auror not long after that. You would know,” he said, his unnatural eyes flicking up to look at Draco’s face, fully enraptured in the story. “It was me that caught Nott in your manor after all. Only it wasn’t. I’d worked all of the Death Eater cases, the ones that had gotten away and continued wreaking havoc among Muggles. The third Killing Curse was from Dolohov, I think. I forget it now, after all these years of trials with trying to die. He’d managed to disarm my partner and turned his wand on me. I think… I think that was about the time of Astoria’s death.

“The curse didn’t rebound, not like it did the first time, when I was a child. I think… I died, and then I wasn’t dead. I woke up hardly a few seconds after and we continued our duel, until I overpowered him. Every Killing Curse has been the same after. It wasn’t until—“

He stopped talking for a moment, breath caught in his throat, as he shut his eyes. When he opened them again, they were glassy and even brighter now with unshed tears. “It wasn’t until James, that’s my eldest—when he died that I resigned from the Aurors and turned myself into the Department of Mysteries.”

The sob that tore through his thin shoulders felt like the tremors of a small earthquake. Draco stared in horrified fascination as Potter righted his chair with a twitch of his fingers and he sank back into it, as if too weak to keep himself standing.

“We thought at first that every time I died and was brought back that it was what was causing all of these magical deaths, the Consumption. Croaker and I, we’d been experimenting with death, with the ways that I could die… I can’t tell you how—Ginny and Albus and Lily—“

It took him a long moment before he could master his grief. Somehow, it was even more devastating to see this broken thirty-six year old man in a teenager’s body wrestle with every death he had seen, every death he tried so very desperately to prevent, only to fail and fail and fail yet again.

Potter heaved a shuddering breath in a valiant effort to stem the tide of despair that threatened to overwhelm him. “We found that it didn’t stop the consumption. People were still dying. Magical creatures were still dying. And every death was like a… a vacuum only the reverse of it. The magic would either flare on the dying person, wink out on their deaths, and then flare back only it would be in my magical core.” He turned his unnatural eyes up at Draco again, that feverish glow making the small hairs on his arms stand on end. “I’m more powerful now than any single being, human or magical.” He laughed, and the laughter was hollow and tinged with hysteria. “I don’t want it! I never did! All I wanted was for the war to be over. I didn’t want to be… to be some sort of demon that sucked the magic out of every living creature!”

Draco stared at him in awe. “You’ve become a god.”

“A god!” Potter spat. “There’s nothing godlike in this existence.”

He could find no words after that. Potter was right. What use was all of this power and magic and immortality — and fucking godhood!—if everyone he loved, everyone he ever cared for was being snuffed out of existence? Before long, he would be the single magical being left in all of Britain, and then, what then?

The silence stretched interminably between them until Draco eventually managed to find his voice. “If you have the magic of godhood, then… you’d have power enough to spare to use the Time Turner.” He swallowed as he stared back in the depths of Potter’s dead, glowing eyes. “What are you planning to do?”

Potter let out another one of his deranged laughs. “What else _can_ I do? I’m going to go back to the one singular point where I made the monumental mistake that tore the fabric of magic as we knew it.”

“The Battle of Hogwarts,” Draco breathed. “You intend to truly die there.”

Potter closed his eyes and bowed his head as his fingers closed convulsively around the Time Turner. “Yes.”

“But that would… that would change the fabric of reality as we know it! We may totally not exist on this timeline… _I_ may totally not exist!”

Potter sneered derisively. “But isn’t that what we wanted to happen? Who wants to live this… this half-reality, where everyone we know and love are dropping off like flies? _I_ certainly do not want to live this fucking nightmare of a life I’ve been living since the Battle.”

Draco stared at Potter even as he made mental calculations of what he could imagine changing if Potter died in the final battle. He wanted to know—Potter’s friends died sometime between him being pronounced dead and him rising back to life to finish off the Dark Lord. “At what point are you returning?”

“There was a time in the battle, after Voldemort killed me.” Potter’s eyes fluttered as he seemed to return back to some long-forgotten memory. His fingers continued to twitch and snap around the gears of the Time Turner, as if he couldn’t contain the crackle of power that seemed to swirl within his core, and it was all itching to spark out of his fingertips. “I thought I’d hallucinated it, after. But now…” He stood and stared at Draco. “I’d been given a choice, see. Board the train into oblivion and die and let the lot of you deal with the snake and Voldemort, or stay on the platform and wake to finish the job.” He smiled mirthlessly at Draco. “It seems hindsight is always 20/20, and once again, I made the wrong decision.”

“So,” Draco said, “you mean to keep everything the same, except to die so as not to rip a hole in the fabric of magic?”

Potter shrugged. He was so thin he looked like a good wind could blow him down. He looked like a huff from Draco could blow him down. “Does it matter if I die?”

“It matters if nothing changes and magic remains unstable. Who did you expect to kill the Dark Lord if not you?”

Potter rolled his eyes. “Guess that means you’re going to have to do something about it, won’t you?”

Draco goggled. “Are you mad? How do you expect me—the me from the final battle to know—you’re not going to bring me with you there, are you?”

A lazy flick of Potter’s near-skeletal left hand was the answer. “What do I care if you can’t kill him? I’ll be dead.”

“You can’t—“

But evidently, he did, as Potter’s magic suddenly crackled through his fingertips and swirled around his body. His glowing eyes, already unnatural in its unholy brightness, flared and it seemed the pupils were swallowed entirely in green as his right hand, the one holding the Time Turner, clutched the tiny device. Draco could see the tiny gears shudder and move of their own volition, propelled forward by the sheer force of Potter’s magic. There was a flash of green light so bright, it would burn itself for days in Draco’s retina, and then the magic crescendoed and crashed.

And then, Potter was gone.

* * *

He had the surety of magic, if nothing else, for what was time and dimension for someone as powerful as he? The Time Turner, an artifact that should have allowed travel through time but not the changing of its passage, and no more than in the tiniest of increments, an hour, a couple at the most, if he recalled Hermione’s pedantic lecture in their third year, became a knife that he used to cleave through the four dimensions, and then some. That not insubstantial, but ultimately intangible thing that made up mortal life perhaps took the most effort to slice through, to wedge himself into the sort of in-between suspension between life and death.

When he was seventeen, he’d thought this a hallucination, as he’d told Draco, and nothing more. Now, as he stood in the featureless white of King’s Cross station, he wasn’t so very sure.

What he’d certainly _not_ planned for was the presence of not only Dumbledore and the mangled bloody corpse that was Voldemort’s soul, but himself at seventeen, his _real_ self at seventeen, as well. Fuck, but he hadn’t prepared for that eventuality. He really ought to have expected it, given how Time Turners worked. Now there would be no way for him to speak to Dumbledore at all.

He watched, sullen in his realization that his plot was foiled so early in its execution, as Dumbledore and the Harry Potter of May 2nd 1998 talked in quiet, hushed tones. He still remembered that conversation, almost like it had happened to him not a minute earlier. Nineteen years seemed an eternity, especially with this strange cruel affliction that tormented his existence as the memories of war and his lost friends had. Perhaps, he really ought to have given himself more time to discuss with Draco what point of the war was the best, but he’d been so impatient to end his existence after years of torment that he’d given no thought further but to the end. Sweet, merciful release.

He deserved it, he thought. He wondered if his other self, the one that was talking to Dumbledore, would even consider _making_ a different decision. The earnestness of his haggard face told him not, and he didn’t even know what would happen if that Harry boarded the train. Would he cease to exist, as he so desperately wished? Or would he be trapped in this limbo of featureless white walls? An eternity of nothing would have been a welcome respite to the nineteen years of despair he’d suffered, but what if him being trapped here meant the Harry Potter in the real world, the world of May 2nd 1998 didn’t die because he continued to exist?

Fuck, this was complicated, and not for the first time, he wished Ron and Hermione were there to help him.

He stared ahead at the train. The other Harry was still deep in conversation with Dumbledore, but they might be winding down soon, and the train would leave. Leave with either the other Harry onboard and him remaining on the platform, or leave back into the world of the Battle of Hogwarts, and cleave the fabric of magic all over again when he didn’t die at Voldemort’s hand.

He needed to make a decision _now_.

The train, silent even though he knew it was running, merited no attention from the other Harry, but now that _he_ was looking at it, he could see motion in the darkened windows. Had he ever seen this back in 1998? He couldn’t recall, and if that oblivious idiot talking to Dumbledore was any indication, he probably didn’t.

It didn’t matter, though. He could see the movement now, little phantom motions that suggested there were people in each of the carriages. Here, he could see the flutter of frizzy brown hair. There, a flash of ginger, the bright dazzle of a smile. They were incorporeal, ephemeral, but he knew with a conviction that Ron and Hermione were there. He moved, as stealthily as he could manage as to not be noticed by either Dumbledore or his past self. The Time Turner’s gears dug into the hard callouses in his fingertips.

Dumbledore would see him, he thought, as the old man looked up to put one hand on the other Harry’s thin shoulder.

He couldn’t…

There was another flash out of the corner of his eyes. Black hair, a bright smile. The glint of light on a clear glass surface broken off by gold wire frames. The train had been silent the entire time he he’d been here, but now he heard a bark of laughter floating from a carriage towards the end, nearest to him. He would have known that laugh anywhere. It was etched into the deepest recesses of his mind, and colored every regret he held in his life. It sparked a pain in his chest that made the yawning emptiness of the past nineteen years of his existence seem an inconsequential nothing compared to the vast _aloneness_ he’d felt when he’d first realized he would never hear that laugh ever again. The devastation that had wrought to his childhood self far outweighed the quiet acceptance he’d had at eleven that there was nothing, not even magic, that could give him back his mum and dad, nor the bitterness that consumed him after the war when he’d had to soldier on to a life without Ron and Hermione, for the absence of that laugh was the signifier of the end of childhood and the start of loss, despair, and true war and its consequences so far-reaching it destroyed everything that he ever held dear. The end of innocence.

 _Sirius_.

In the distance, he could see the other Harry standing up. He would see him. He would, he knew.

He didn’t care. Let him think he’d gone certifiable nuts in his death. He would cease to exist anyway, soon. There was no point worrying if that Harry would continue on back into life to duel Voldemort, or if he would board the train. He _knew_ he would continue on; Harry Potter in 1998 had been made of sterner stuff than the empty shell of a man tethered together only by magic and despair that he was now.

Let the Wizarding World rip itself apart again if it wanted to. He deserved this, after thirty six years of torment, this rest.

He walked towards the carriage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an experimental story. I'm not sure yet what will come of it but I wanted a Time Travel story that mixed in elements of other fanfic I've read in ways that I've always wanted done but never seen. So hey, wrote my own fic.
> 
> I'm a fan of Time Travel stories, especially of Harry meeting the Marauders in all their glory back in Hogwarts. I've particularly enjoyed Sirius/Harry fanfics (I know, the chan element is squick, and the godfather element even more so) I think it's a bit far-fetched to say Harry and Sirius would have ever had much in common, especially during Sirius' time in Hogwarts. I doubt the Harry we've seen in the books would ever be anything close to what his parents or his parents friends were like. They lived in different times, and none of them ever had the expectations that had been heaped on Harry himself, and I wanted to see what that was like.
> 
> Furthermore, I wanted to see a reverse of the Harry and Sirius dynamic, where Harry is now the one who's older, who had seen things darker even than the abuse Sirius experienced in his childhood home. It remains to be seen whether this pairing will ever materialize in this story, but I've put it up in the tags just in case, since that was the inspiration for the story in the first place.
> 
> Please ignore the weird mix of British and American spelling. I was educated in both and I often end up mixing them up, and since I don't really proof my work, well, you get the mess you have now.


	2. Chapter 2

The problem with going on unknown adventures was that once you got dropped right smack in the middle of it, there was every possibility it was going to knock you upside the head, hex your bollocks with a well-placed _Reducio_ , or just plain old kick you in the nuts (a reality Ginny once swore by when she was the new second string on the Quidditch leagues and all those hotshots on brooms thought her only defense against harassment was a Bat Bogey Hex).

Considering Harry felt like every bone in his body had been through those tamping machinery whenever the asphalt on the turn from Privet Drive to Privet Close was patched, and he felt like he’d gone through a couple nice tumbles in Aunt Petunia’s washing machine (not for the faint of heart, Dudley once stuffed him in the dryer and tried to set it on high; he was lucky Aunt Petunia caught him, or Harry would probably be visiting wherever he was right now on a fast track, and Dudley would be spending hard time in St. Brutus’ School for Incurably Criminal Boys), he had to surmise that maybe this meant he was not rather inherently a good person for 37 years before he finally managed to off himself. It probably had to do with the fact that he neither cared enough to save the reality he came from, nor did he give enough fucks in the reality that other Harry on King’s Cross was going back to.

The gurgled groan that escaped his mouth was familiar though: he sounded exactly as he did whenever he came back from whatever fool method he and Croaker had thought would finally kill him, only to be hopelessly foiled.

Didn’t help that wherever afterlife he’d landed, the ground was hard and damp and cold, and fuck, was he in a dungeon? Did not caring about the fate of humanity _really_ merit him an afterlife in hell in a fucking dungeon? He was sure not even Dante’s Inferno referenced dungeons. Just boiling lakes and endless boils in the arse holes of the damned.

This was just _bad._

It took him a good long while before he finally found the wherewithal to brace himself up in arms weak with atrophied muscle and manage to haul himself up to his feet to take stock of what the Afterlife of Harry Potter was going to be.

It wasn’t looking up very well, he supposed.

He still wore the featureless, shapeless grey robes Saul Croaker had given him when he’d started working in the Department of Mysteries. It was plain and drab and boring, but Harry had never really fussed with how he looked or dressed, and it hadn’t been like there was anyone to see him. By that time, he and Ginny had been heading to Splitsville; Jamie’s death had been hard on their marriage. Didn’t help that Harry was already 28 and he still had fifth year girls hitting on him whenever he visited Jamie at Hogwarts because fuck if this Magical Consumption bothered to take into account that he actually _might_ want to put on a few years of age in wrinkles on his face. Being baby-faced for an eternity wasn’t any sort of ambition he’d ever had growing up. His thin, spindly hands were still covered by the kid leather gloves, standard issue for Unspeakables, particularly when they had to handle delicate potions or artefacts, and that single Time Turner unearthed at Malfoy Manor was certainly the very depiction of delicate.

Speaking of which…. Shit.

The Time Turner was still in his hand, the tiny rods and cogs only slightly bent out of shape, the little hourglass that indicated the artefact was probably working still spinning idly.

This afterlife jaunt wasn’t really turning out very well for him. Not even his spectacles wanted to cooperate, having been thrown from his face, ostensibly when he landed in wherever he was, and bounced on the stone floor. One of the lenses was cracked through.

A twitch of a finger and the glasses flew up to his hand. Another absent-minded gesture instantly repaired it, before he shoved it to his face, and finally managed to see where it was he’d gone.

If Harry’s life hadn’t been one long cock-up after another, he might have even appreciated the irony of his situation.

As it were, he’d spent a good enough chunk of fifth year sitting miserably in this room getting his mind raped by by a teacher masquerading as a Death Eater that he rather sorely regretted working as hard as he had getting fucking Severus Snape even exonerated posthumously of his crimes, not to mention even going so far as to name his second son, the one who’d been the spitting image of him, after that greasy old bat, that even with the oddly overstuffed quality of the decor, he’d recognize the Potion Master’s office as if that horrible year had happened yesterday, and not 21 years before he actually shuffled out if his mortal coil.

This whole concept of hell was turning out to be one cosmic joke, and the only way things could really get worse was if…

“Mr. Potter?”

Shit.

Harry spun on his heel, only marginally thankful that while he’d hurtled through time, space, magic and life and death, he at least hadn’t lost foot to eye coordination and didn’t stumble as he found Horace Slughorn waddling into the office. There was something not quite right about Slughorn as he smiled widely at Harry.

No, this hell was definitely worse than one spent reliving Occlumency lessons with Snape for an eternity. Maybe he shouldn’t have waited until half the wizarding population of Britain had croaked before attempting to rip himself through dimensions to die?

* * *

When Harry next did a stock check of himself, there were a few marginally less awful things he’d ascertained than that he would be spending his eternity in hell with Horace Slughorn for company.

  1. He, Harry, was in fact not dead. He would have been only slightly mortified that Slughorn attempted to check him for a _Confundus_ when he asked if he was dead, if he hadn’t reacted like the narrow-eyed, paranoid little fucker he’d always been since he started working for the Aurors and petrified, stunned and silenced the old man with a mere twitch of a finger before he even realized old Sluggy wasn’t actively trying to attack him, no, quite the contrary, Mr Potter!  
  

  2. And now, since he wasn’t dead, he could feel the creep of his despair dampening even that mild enthusiasm he felt over the novelty of going to hell despite the fact that he’d basically been Wizarding Jesus by the time he was seventeen.  
  

  3. Not only had he managed to completely cock up his own death and any hope for an afterlife by _not actually dying_ , he hadn’t even managed to land himself at the right timeline.  
  

  4. The date was September 1, 1977, he was in Hogwarts, that not-right thing he’d found about Slughorn was being about 20 years younger than Harry had remembered him from his own sixth year in 1997, and he was going to be very severely fucked the moment he stepped out of Dumbledore’s office, which was where he was now, because of _course_ Slughorn had to hie him off to Dumbledore since he thought he was James fucking Potter and and how even was this going to work? He _couldn’t_ go back to school, to sixth year no less! He was thirty six going on fucking _dead_ , and there was the not inconsiderable fact that Harry, having his magical core expanded to an nth degree he couldn’t even fathom since he had no fucking idea how many people actually died of Magical Consumption in _his_ timeline, hadn’t been in the habit of using wands or casting verbally, for at least five years now. He needn’t even so much as blinked an eye. These days, all he had to do was wish it and shit came true. What was it that Malfoy had called him? A god. How the fuck was he even going to pass off as a sodding teenager, much less go to classes where his fucking parents were physically younger than him, and mentally he was at least as old as some of the professors.  
  

  5. Panicking while literally oozing magic out of his pores resulted in explosions, and exploding the office of Hogwarts’ Headmaster in a timeline that the old man never knew him was a one-way ticket to a month of detention, and since he’d _also_ technically broken into Slughorn’s office, he was spending that one month with the smarmy Potions Master. It was like the universe conspired against him to make sure his life would _never_ be free of Shit He Absolutely Did Not Care To Relive.  
  

  6. Repeating things slowly to potentially senile old men (Dumbledore pushed a hundred even _before_ his parents’ time, right? Right? Harry couldn’t remember, and that, ladies and gentlemen, was what was called a middle age, a sign surely that he shouldn’t be sitting here being chastised like he was an errant schoolboy when he’d had at least eighteen years worrying about things like fucking _mortgages_ and _taxes_ , and you know what? Maybe he shouldn’t have signed up for that Boy Who Lived song-and-dance when he was in school. If he stayed with the Dursley’s and just gone to Stonewall High, he could even have been an accountant now) did not, in fact, make them apt to improve in comprehension any better than the next idiot.  
  

  7. He _really_ should’ve just listened to Malfoy.



The door opened presently and Minerva McGonagall, a good forty years younger and significantly less grey than Harry remembered her last, swept in and froze at the sight of the devastation. Harry’s magic, spiraling out of control in his panic, had laid waste to Dumbledore’s office so completely, his anguished fifteen-year-old self who’d broken every last bauble the old headmaster had in a fit of grief would have been mightily proud. The rubble of destroyed magical instruments, ripped portraits, and splinters of what may have begun its life as beautiful antique furniture and were now little better than kindling looked more like a still life of the inside of the Shrieking Shack than the Headmaster’s office.

“What in Merlin’s name happened, Albus?” Her head whipped from the headmaster, still half-obscured by the powerful _Protego_ he’d whipped between himself and Slughorn to protect them from the blast of Harry’s magic, to the tall, thin boy in bedraggled grey robes. “Mr. Potter? How on earth did you manage—never mind. There are things better left unknown. Albus? The students are arriving. We need to prepare for the Sorting.”

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

Harry didn’t need more proof of his life as a cosmic joke. Dumbledore had _just_ told answered him in that calm, measured voice that he would be allowed to stay—no, that he had to stay, lest he be exposed to the Wizarding World at large, where he would undoubtedly wreak more widespread destruction, not to mention leave him vulnerable to You-Know-Who, a fact Harry found laughable at best, since he figured he could always just wish the noseless bastard into nonexistence and the universe would maybe finally let up and give him a fucking medal, or at least let him fucking die instead of making him repeat sixth year, except, probably not. Hadn’t he _just_ had that conversation with Malfoy about the laws of physics being no different than the laws of magic? Anyway, his magic, while more powerful than the average wizard (or maybe even the most extraordinary wizard) still obeyed the laws of magic.

Alright, except for that one time he cleaved through the fabric of existence and life and death and managed to land himself in his current predicament.

“Minerva,” Albus said pleasantly, as if Harry hadn’t just nuked his office, “our young guest is not the irrepressible Mr. Potter from your Gryffindor roost, though I’m sure James would be along in the Great Hall with the other returning students.”

Harry rolled his eyes. Really? Really, he had to tell his story again? “Harry Potter,” he muttered, extending his hand to his former Head of House. Or maybe his future head of House. Time had funny way of drawing circles around his head when he tried to make sense of the up and down of it.

“Henry Potter?” McGonagall said. “I’m afraid you’ll have to try again, young man. You forget that Harry is a contemporary of mine; I did go to school with the man, and while you look quite very much like him and Fleamont, the resemblance to his grandson, James, is most uncanny.”

If Harry kept rolling his eyes, he was sure they would pop out of his skull and dance along the wasteland that was now Dumbledore’s office. “ _No_ , Professor. I’m Harry James Potter, though yes, I was your student too, or would be your student… I can’t really get all this timey-wimey shit just right, Croaker tried explaining, but I guess he, er, croaked, that is to say, the Consumption got him before I ever managed to understand what it was he kept muttering about. I’m from 2017. Or, shit, I guess 1997 would be when you last saw me age? I’ve still got _Witch Weekly_ asking me what potions and salves I’ve been using to keep away the wrinkles even though I already told them that they really didn’t want to look like they’d just survived a world war for the sake of keeping their jowls from sagging, but when has Pansy Parkinson ever listened to me?”

“1997! But that would mean—“

“Yes, I’m from the future, or what would be your future if you keep the shit you’ve been doing up,” Harry said sternly, wagging his fingers at Dumbledore in the same way he would chastise Lily when she had one grubby hand in the cookie jar Ginny had painstakingly hidden behind the jars of pickled tomato. “I’m thirty-six years old, not sixteen, thank you very much, and I’ll not have you stick me into a repeat of sixth year even if I did have to go to class with my mum and dad. I’m _older_ than them!”

“No,” McGonagall said faintly, eyes wide behind her thin gold-rimmed spectacles. “Of course not.”

Dumbledore went to protest but Harry wasn’t having it.

“Finally! Someone who sees reason around here!” He beamed at McGonagall, even though he was sure with his feverishly bright eyes, his bedraggled, long hair, and the straggly beard he’d never bothered to shave off (who was going to see him anyway when he wore his Unspeakable glamour? Wasn’t like his wife was still alive, and even if she were, the Harry/Ginny ship has long since sunk with a good chunk of his vault contents after Ginny got custody of their two remaining children), he was sure he looked positively loony.

He skirted around piles of rubble to stand next to McGonagall and put an appreciative arm around his favorite Professor. “Now, Professor, I do get that it’s probably not very intelligent for me to venture out into the wild, at least not until I got the hang of 1977. Did Hogsmeade ever have a disco? No? Shame, then, would’ve been interesting to see what the roaring 70s were like in a Wizarding disco—“

Dumbledore cleared his throat and smiled kindly, if a bit pointedly at McGonagall. “As you can see, Minerva, we do have a dilemma with Mr. Potter. We’ve taken the liberty of attempting to send him back to his own time, but he’s assured Professor Slughorn and myself that he would rather do a fair number of unmentionable things to Voldemort’s—“ Slughorn, that miserable hunk of lard, actually gasped! “—undergarments than return to the future from whence he came, further to the point of which the Time Turner in his possession appears to have quite severely been dented out of shape and may be unsuitable to propel Mr. Potter forward to a time that would have been more suitable for him.”

“The long and short of which basically means I have to stay,” Harry said with another significant roll of his eyes at how utterly pedantic academics could truly allow themselves to become when discussing esoteric magic. Malfoy and Croaker had been no different, and Harry just wasn’t interested in long-winded theoretical discussions, when they could quite succinctly move more into the _doing_. “Don’t worry, Professor, I’ve no desire to put a cramp in your style by insinuating myself among the students, but I’m not about to let any of you shut me up down some abandoned potions room in the dungeons while the good Headmaster tries to wrap his brain around my presence and its significance. But I _do_ need to, let’s say, be doing something that explains my presence in Hogwarts until I’m—and I assure you, I’ll do exactly as I say I will—good and ready to suss out Voldemort from whatever hidey-hole he’s got and end the war before my parents croak it in ’81.”

McGonagall’s eyes couldn’t possibly grow any wider, or they’d be able the size of her glasses. “You intend to—“

“Yes, my dear Minnie. We’ve got plans to end the war a good twenty years early, so that my dear old dad and his friends can live a ripe old age, and I don’t grow up into the sodding magical monstrosity I’ve become now and rip a hole in the fabric of magic when I defeat Voldemort in 1998.” He grinned at her and snapped his fingers. Instantly, the destruction of Dumbledore’s office righted itself as if Harry had never had his panic attack and bout of accidental magic. “See, I can do all sorts of fun things now, and I don’t even need a wand anymore. Haven’t used one since 2010, come to think of it. My holly wand broke and she was my favorite of them all until Malfoy owled me back his hawthorn wand for me to borrow as thanks for catching Nott when he broke into Malfoy Manor, but anyway!”

From the distance, wafting through the open window of Dumbledore’s office came the sound of two hundred schoolchildren all aflutter with excitement to return for another year of Hogwarts. Harry would have been ecstatic if he wasn’t thirty-six and would make a joke of the classes.

“The Sorting, Albus!”

Dumbledore clapped his hand and the Sorting Hat flew out of its stand (now fixed! Harry wouldn’t let the Hat down like that!) and into his hand. “I’m sorry, Mr. Potter, we simply do not have the time to make alternative arrangements in consideration of your age, and your physical appearance does not lend any credence to an academic’s distinguished stance. You will have to join the first years in the Sorting. Fear not that we shall endeavor to make your stay as comfortable and familiar as possible. You may join the sixth years once Sorted; I’m sure a few days spending time with your parents and your parents friends will be a wonderful use of your time in familiarization of our time here.”

And that was how Harry now found himself sitting on the dinky little stool (he’d always remembered that stool as particularly high, but then he’d been a tiny eleven-year-old!), freshly shaved and his wild long hair tamed in an unruly ponytail, his grey robes Transfigured to match the standard black, on the pretext of being a transfer student by the most unfortunate name of Harry Patter, and hoping the Hat didn’t drop the sodding Sword of Godric Gryffindor like it had in 2014 when he’d visited Minerva McGonagall ostensibly to seek her guidance in the guise of Unspeakable J as regards to his connection to the Magical Consumption but really, he’d just wreaked havoc in the Headmistress’ office, though in a fun way and not at all in the level-everything-flat way that he’d just done a half hour ago.

 _“Well, you’re an interesting one,”_ the Hat commented as soon as it dropped over his head. He wasn’t sure if it expanded and still managed to cover his glasses or he really had a head the size of an eleven-year-old’s, just like in 2014.

 _“If by_ interesting _, you mean an unwilling participant in this farce, you’re about right.”_ He sighed. “ _I’m too old for this shit.”_

 _“I’m sure you do not need to tell me to mind your language, Mr. Patter_ ,” the Hat told him rather primly.“ _Just remember that there are children present.”_

Harry rolled his eyes. “Oh, won’t someone think about the children,” he huffed sarcastically out loud. “ _Well, what’ll it be this time? Not Slytherin, mind. I know I thought I’d just gone to hell in Snape’s office with Slughorn for company, but I’d really rather not be around a teenage Snape at this time.”_

“ _You’ll be please to know Mr. Snape likely shares your opinion, with the way he’s glaring at you.”_

 _“Nah, that’s just me looking like my dad. Probably thinks he’s already got_ one _James Potter to deal with. Not very excited to see another one who looks exactly like him, don’t you think?”_

The Hat harrumphed and Harry sniggered quietly, before it continued, rather pointedly, “Anyway _, your House. Not very ambitious, are you? Quite powerful, but would really like nothing better than a cup of tea and some silence.”_

 _“Preferably the sort where no one dies, Jemina—that’s Unspeakable P to you—from the DoM did that in 2015 while I was reading_ Foucoult’s Pendulum, _Magical Consumption and all, you know_ … _What? It was magical theory research!”_

The Hat heaved a long-suffering sigh. “ _No real patience for academic pursuit, I see, certainly not Ravenclaw… Loyalty to nothing more important than a pair of warm socks, never a true Hufflepuff…”_

 _“Do you think it’ll be awkward if I had to be roommates with my dad?”_ Harry asked conversationally, completely ignoring the Sorting Hat’s commentary of what a useless lump of a person he’d allowed himself to become in his despair and apathy.

Then a thought crossed his mind with a heaping amount of stomach-curdling horror. “ _Oh shit, what if my mum ends up liking me instead of my dad? I swear I don’t have an Oedipus complex! I’ll have you know, Ginny looked nothing like my mum by the time we got married. She was all buff and sporty from all the Quidditch by then,”_ he added almost wistfully. Ginny hadn’t really aged well by the time they got divorced. Jamie’s death had pushed her to drinking, and that resulted in the loss of her writing gig as the Daily Prophet’s Quidditch correspondent, hence the need for Harry to fork over a good chunk of the Potter and Black vaults to keep her afloat, with their two remaining children.

 _“I_ suppose _you still have the drive to rush off to danger and save the world from He Who Must Not Be Named,”_ the Hat said, ignoring his comments. “ _Though what manner of danger a man who you could kill with a thought presents leaves somewhat lacking in courage in the face of danger.”_

Harry pouted, affronted that a grotty piece of headgear could so callously call the singular most scintillating event of his life that defined him as a Gryffindor _lacking_. “ _Just put me back in Gryffindor and be done with it. I rather think I’d at least have a few good laughs hanging around my dad. Though he really could use getting knocked down a peg or two with his bullying Snape. Think I could teach him a bit of a lesson? Like I’d done to Teddy that one time he pretended to be Neville so he and his mates could sneak into my Firewhiskey cupboard. Probably should try that trick on old Minnie if I needed to get a bit of a piss.”_

The Hat sighed again, a really put-upon sigh that it probably thought it sounded not very different from McGonagall herself. _“You did choose what you deserved this time though, and if that wasn’t a sign of your true self, I really can’t tell what is. Well, there’s nothing for it then…”_

“SLYTHERIN!”

And that was how Harry Potter found himself sitting in the most unpleasant company of Leon Avery, Geoffrey Mulciber, Walden McNair, Severus Snape, Rabastan Lestrange, Thorfinn Rowle, Evan Rosier, and Lucius Malfoy, the party of future Death Eaters he never wanted to meet, teenage superiority, the most abominable case of body odor (he really had no doubt that it could have been anyone but Snape, phew! The man, or boy, whatever, really needed a bath and an introduction to the world of deodorants!) and puberty-induced acne and all. Behind him, he was almost sure he could picture the devilish grins of James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew, all aflutter to have a new victim for their pranks. Fucking Sally Slytherin must be rolling in his grave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The voice changed rather drastically in this chapter. I like to think that my Harry, although no longer caring of much of anything apart from dying to prevent the Magical Consumption from killing off every witch and wizard in England, is still capable of being human. He's filled with despair and eaten up by loneliness, but he still manages to find it in himself to be self-deprecating, humorous, irreverent, and just human.
> 
> Note also the change in Lucius' age. He's about 7 years older than Snape, but here, he, Narcissa, and Andromeda are still at Hogwarts when the Marauders are already in 6th year.


	3. Chapter 3

Conflict was immediately apparent the moment Slytherin retired to the dungeons. Harry wasn’t particularly keen to spend more time than necessary with the five Slytherin sixth years who’d given him freezing greetings when he’d been forced to join them at the Slytherin table in the Great Hall. Mulciber, Avery, Rosier and Macnair all took one look at the shabby transfigured robes, the crooked tie, and Harry’s gaunt, reed thin build and immediately assumed that this was another of those impoverished half-bloods, like Snape, or worse, a mud blood, and had rather succinctly shut him out of the group. Snape, possibly the odd one out of a group of Wizard-raised pure blood young men, and very probably the poorest among the five, hated his guts for entirely different reasons, ones which Harry could easily guess sounded a lot like James Potter clone.

He refused to feel self-conscious at the nettling whispers the five sixth years engaged in, and at least once, turned the fever brightness of his green eyes glittering in the most menacing fashion at Snape, whose bed he had the most unfortunate misfortune of being closest to next to the eerily glowing glass windows that looked out into the Black Lake. They were children, he was an adult. Fuck them all if they had issues, and if they so much as breathed wrong in his direction, Harry supposed the future could use one less Death Eater in its continuum.

Macnair had already made the mistake of trying to hex Harry’s robes in a tangle as they’d descended the stairs to the dungeon, perhaps keen on breaking the new kid’s neck as the staircase switched direction. Before he’d even opened his mouth for the jinx, Harry had turned his head, his eyes growing minutely larger, the green blazing sinister and bright, and the spell died on the boy’s lips, and the group descended in orderly fashion, so silent that Lucius, apparently the Head Boy in 1977, had shot their group a suspicious glance, before swiftly stalking off towards the Hufflepuff Head Girl.

Harry briefly wondered how that worked; Slytherin notoriously looked down on Hufflepuff. It wasn’t even anything like the animosity between Slytherin and Gryffindor, which really was nothing more than a pissing contest. The Slytherin-Hufflepuff conflict on the other hand was full of condescension and skirmishes about each other’s ability to function as a human being. Privately, Harry agreed with with Slytherin sensibilities that results mattered; he’d known far too many Hufflepuff alumni in his Auror days to know that a fair bit of the time, they were too focused on working hard rather than working intelligently. He didn’t really care at this point, though. He was probably mildly brain dead from the over influx of magic and the tides of apathy within him no longer ebbed and flowed as it had in the years past when the Magical Consumption first appeared, but now crashed repeatedly like an unmoving hurricane, set to destroy everything that made Harry human.

Presently, he had a different sort of problem that now made it quite obvious that he hadn’t thought the course of action he’d taken through.

In the dorm room, the other boys have started changing for bed, and it was only now dawning to Harry that if he was going to stay in 1977 for very long, he was, at the very least going to need clothes, as he had nothing to himself more than the clothes on his back.

Snape shot him beady looks, evidently suspicious over Harry’s lack of a trunk to mark the bed he’d been assigned. Harry ignored him and turned over his pockets to try to find something to transfigure into sleep clothes so he wasn’t in the same raggedy robes day in and day out. He was marginally thankful that his money pouch, linked by goblin magic to the Potter vault, was still in his trouser pocket, so that meant he wasn’t going to be some broke hobo squatting in Hogwarts while he bided his time. Besides his money pouch, he still had Malfoy’s hawthorn wand, which he’d taken to carrying when Malfoy first owled it back to him eleven years ago when his holly wand broke, so at least that took care of having to pretend to be a normal wizard and not some over-powered monstrosity that he actually was. Besides this, he only had his gloves, which he’d removed prior to the Sorting, a few squashed wrappers of Chocolate Frogs, and an unwashed handkerchief that looked like it’d taken up residence in his robe pocket for a few weeks at least. It wasn’t the best option, but until he could owl order things or manage to get out to Hogsmeade to buy clothing, it would have to do.

He trudged to the bathroom so as not to have an audience for his sorry state of affairs and _Scourgified_ the handkerchief as best before transfiguring it into a white sleep shirt almost as raggedy as the robes he’d discarded at the foot of his bed. When he emerged from the bathroom, face washed, teeth cleaned, Rosier was sneering at him from the center of the room.

“Another one of those destitute mud bloods foisted on the already overburdened fabric of our society, I see,” he commented snootily as he eyed Harry’s sorry-looking sleep shirt, taking in the way the stiff cotton fabric draped over his thin shoulders. “ _Someone_ really ought to bring up to the Board of Governors that Hogwarts is _not_ a charity institution.”

Harry debated if the snide comment warranted a full display of the strength of his magic and decided against it. Any one of these boys might take it back to their parents and that would just invite Voldemort knocking on Hogwarts’ door before he was ready.

“Oh, my things just got delayed is all,” he lied, utterly bored with the small-mindedness of the conversation. Rosier was a flobberworm in the grand scheme of things he intended to change in _this_ timeline. “Suppose you wouldn’t know about that having never seen a world beyond the walls of your manor.”

Rosier sniffed, but subsided without further comment over his blood status or family wealth. Harry was glad, for _his_ safety.

“Where do you hail from then, mud blood?” Avery called from where he sat at his bed, one brown eyebrow arched imperiously as if he’d the right to information over anyone sharing a dorm room with him. Harry supposed he would have asked the same if he’d had to share air with anyone as odious as this child.

“Oh, here and there,” he said vaguely as if unconcerned. He’d forgotten how damn nosy the general Wizarding populace had always been, having holed up in the depths of the Department of Mysteries for much of the last several years when Croaker invited him to work on the Magical Consumption.

“Why haven’t you been at Hogwarts in your first year?” Mulciber asked in an almost amiable tone if the stiffness of his upper lip could be ignored.

Harry waved a negligent hand. “There’s education to be had elsewhere than here. Just because you’re here doesn’t make it the _only_ place where you can receive a magical education.” And that was just the truth. Before the Consumption, the Wizarding population of the Britain of his time had numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Hogwarts took only two hundred students at any given time, and Harry knew for a fact that many families home-schooled their children, or sent them to Ministry schools, one of which Dean had taught at after the war. Harry himself had gone six months at the Russian Institute as part of his Auror training, and that had also had the sort of elementary magical education that Hogwarts offered. Ginny hadn’t been pleased they couldn’t meet much at that stage of their relationship and courtship.

He could tell the others were suppressing burning questions as to where the strange new student came from but at that moment, the door opened and Lucius pompously let himself in.

“Patter, Professor Slughorn requests your presence in his office.”

Harry rolled his eyes and hauled himself off his assigned bed, throwing his robes over his sleeping clothes. Lucius sounded every bit as self-important as Harry remembered him as an adult and a sitting member of the Board of Governors during Harry’s childhood, though if the boy didn’t look exactly like Draco had back in sixth year, Harry would have been hard-pressed to say he didn’t actually sound like Percy Weasley instead.

Lucius walked with him to Slughorn’s office, perhaps assuming that Harry wouldn’t know where he should be going, even though Harry had mostly memorized the maze of the dungeons by now, having worked for a time as a Defense of the Dark Arts teaching consultant for McGonagall during the time of each of his children’s birth. McGonagall had offered him better hours than the Robards could in order for him to be able to get home early to be with Ginny.

He eyed the long-haired blond boy, who stationed himself outside of Slughorn’s office. “Well, go on. I don’t need an escort, you know.”

Lucius flipped his hair over his shoulder and ignored his sly remark over the boy’s sense of importance in the grand scheme of things. “I shall wait for you here to make sure you don’t make trouble in the corridors once you’re done with Slughorn’s meeting.”

Harry smirked. “Just like the pompous page boy you’ve always been,” and hurried into the office before Lucius could bore him any further with his insinuations of superiority. He shot a quick _Colloportus_ and _Muffliato_ with the point of a finger at the door as he closed it behind him.

Dumbledore, Slughorn and a man Harry would know anywhere for how much time he’d spent with him researching the why and how of Magical Consumption were seated conferring at Slughorn’s desk.

“Croaker?”

Professor Saul Croaker, a good forty years younger than Harry remembered before he’d blown up in his face in the middle of one of their long-winded discussions on the theory behind the magical vacuum that the Consumption was apparently made of, stood and extended a hand.

“Have we met before, Mr. Patter?” Croaker asked, vague recognition flitting through his dark eyes as Harry shook his hand.

“Yes and no, Saul,” he responded, easily settling back into the tone of voice Unspeakable J often took when discussing with his immediate supervisor. “And before you go looking weird at me for my impertinence, I’ll clarify now that no, I’m not the undernourished teenage clone of James Potter. My name is Harry Potter, and from the timeline _I_ came from, you deadass splattered my face with your brain matter when your head imploded. And no, that is not a turn of phrase—you died of Magical Consumption right in front of me.”

Croaker frowned. “Died… Timeline…? You’re from the future?”

Harry grinned. “2017, to be exact, and you got it right in one.” He turned to Dumbledore. “See, Albus, I knew you had it in you to employ people marginally competent sometimes. Could never understand for the life of me whether you intentionally preferred to surround yourself with buffoons during _my_ time in Hogwarts.”

“Yes well, Mr Potter, I’m sure the dearth of talent during that period could easily have been explained away by a world recovering from a war,” Dumbledore commented drily.He turned to Croaker. “Saul, you’ve been the foremost expert on time magic in your residency here in Hogwarts, and I thought it best to consult on the ramifications of Mr Potter’s appearance as it seems we may have no way of sending Mr. Potter back to his time before he managed to significantly alter events as to render his timeline nonexistent.”

“That’s the point though, old man,” Harry muttered sullenly. Even after the hour he spent arguing with Slughorn and Dumbledore when they attempted to send him back earlier that day, the old Headmaster still refused to entertain the notion that _maybe_ magic actually had a purpose in sending Harry back to this time out of all others. “You’re not sending me back to my timeline; I’ve no wish to witness the demise of Wizarding Britain from events _you_ orchestrated, that resulted in a rift over the fabric of magic so huge, it nearly killed us all in the future.”

“Fascinating,” Croaker said. Slughorn nodded somberly. “So you say that in this future timeline—2017, wasn’t it?—there’s some sort of… magical disease, I suppose would be the best way to put it… that’s been killing wizards? When did it start?”

Harry heaved a breath, the action shaking his quivering shoulders and rasping in his chest. “1998. That was the year of the Final Battle, here in Hogwarts. Voldemort’s forces took over the school the year prior. Ron and Hermione—that is, my friends I had left school to hunt for his Horcruxes—“ Slughorn turned green at this, and Harry privately felt vindictive over the man having been the one to teach young Tom Riddle about the nefarious making of the soul artifact. “Voldemort had seven by that time.”

“Seven!” Slughorn exclaimed, eyes rounding and exchanging a look of horror with Dumbledore, who looked, if anything, as if he was digging in with a well of patience as Harry recounted the future.

“Yeah, seven,” harry said, mildly annoyed and impatient at the interruption. “I was the sixth, by the way. Old Voldy attacked my parents when I was about a year old and tried to kill me. There was a prophecy, see, that had him convinced I was the one who was going to kill him. Could’ve been different though. Neville Longbottom fit the picture of the prophecy just as well as I did, haven’t the faintest notion why Voldy chose me considering I’m a half-blood, James Potter and Lily Evans being my parents.“ Slughorn appeared astounded by this, but Dumbledore and Croaker seemed to have expected it. “Anyway, he attacked my family, intending to make his final Horcrux out of my death, but some magical love thing that my mum cast—don’t look at me like that, Albus, you were the one who told me it was _love_ that conquered Voldemort—caused his spell to rebound and gave my this scar.” He paused to gesture at the lightning bolt scar on his forehead, now dead after his sacrifice in the final battle.

“My friends and I managed to gather and destroy all the Horcruxes before the final battle in 1998.” Harry paused again at the remembered pain of losing all his friends, everyone he loved in the epic war that spanned all his formative teenage years. “By then, I’d been so far gone that when I realized I was a Horcrux myself, I’d allowed Voldemort to kill me. Only I didn’t die, _again_ , and the magical whiplash from that Killing Curse rebounded on him after he tried to kill me a third time and ultimately killed himself caused a rift in the fabric of magic, and started what we’ve been calling in my time as Magical Consumption, which eventually decimated the Wizarding population of Britain, I’ve no idea if it ever affected the rest of the world. I’ve become sort of a shut in in the Department of Mysteries after I resigned my Auror badge, and started working with you, Saul, or I suppose your future self, to try to stem the pandemic brought on by the Consumption.

“You died after we’d had a breakthrough when Malfoy, Draco, not Lucius, surrendered his remaining Time Turner to us. It wasn’t in working condition, and I’d continued on fixing it with Malfoy, and that’s how we’re here now.”

He paused for a breath and debated internally if he should confess to actually intending to go back in time to die instead of finding a way to cure the Consumption. After all, his intention to die during the war coincided with having actually prevented the rise of the Consumption by never having torn the fabric of magic to kill Voldemort. It was probably good enough, and he wasn’t keen to share that he’d in fact not only torn through magic in his jaunt back in time, but actually ripped through the very fabric of existence, that insubstantial but all-important thing that separated life from death.

Dumbledore was looking at him pensively, Slughorn in horror at the events of the grim future he recounted, and Croaker looked speculative.

“Do you have an idea why specifically you’ve landed in 1977, Mr Potter?” Dumbledore inquired after a long moment.

Slughorn had already moved from behind his desk to reach up to a cupboard and pulled out a bottle of mead to calm his nerves. “Come now, Albus, you’ve heard the boy.” He ignored Harry when he tried to interrupt to say he wasn’t a boy any longer, he was thirty six years old! “You Know Who attacked and systematically destroyed everyone and everything that was ever important to him. Why shouldn’t he return to our time now? This is a time when You Know Who’s rise to power hasn’t escalated to a fever pitch. While it’s true that there have been troubling disappearances of late, you can’t say at all that we are in all out war.”

Harry nodded, though he was certain that wasn’t it. What had he been thinking before he boarded the train at King’s Cross? He’d heard something… something he just now couldn’t remember, but was sure it hadn’t been something that had ever happened in his lifetime. The sound had been familiar, but different… He shook his head. He couldn’t remember, and it didn’t really matter. He’d boarded the train intending to die, and instead, it spat him out into another place and another time, one where he hadn’t even been born.

Croaker stood as Slughorn handed off mead to all three professors, smiled generously to Harry as he handed him his own. Old bastard probably thought he was going to buy the favor of the future Saviour of the Wizarding World before the war had even begun. It was disgusting.

He gulped his mead, wishing the drink was stronger considering the hell he’d had to relive at rehashing his life to these three men, all of whom at one point or another, had been part of his struggle, and yet now knew next to nothing of what they’d done.

“I can understand,” Dumbledore began as Harry also stood, believing the meeting over when the silence extended for some time, “why you would not wish to return to your timeline, Mr Potter. It sounds like you’ve come from a bleak world headed towards a nothing that you seem to studiously be trying to avoid, but you must understand, your presence here in the past could unmake whole swaths of the future. Time is not something mortals are meant to trifle with.”

If Harry had still been holding his glass, he would have hurled it at the wall. As it were, his magic rose instead, leaking from his pores and glittering dangerously in his eyes as lighting and ozone crackled in his fingertips. “Are you telling me that you would have the Wizarding World collapse in the future in the name of preserving the time space continuum? Hundreds of thousands of wizards and witches dropping dead over something _I_ have the power now to prevent?”

A tendril of green magic that swirled around Harry’s form abruptly lashed out, hitting the glass cabinet containing a display of Slughorn’s pricier cauldrons, shattering glass and melting three of the metal-based gold, silver and pewter cauldrons into slag that dripped down like shivering blood on the wall. Slughorn and Croaker were white as a sheet, but Dumbledore remained unperturbed.

Harry turned livid glowing eyes at the three men. “If ever there was a time to think about the greater good over this nonsense you wish to preserve over the continuity of time and space, now would be a good time to think about it, gentlemen.” He clenched his fists; it was an effort to reign in his magic to a level where it was no longer destroying anything and everything around him. When he was sure he was no longer vibrating with the effort to contain his magic, he stalked to the door and undid the privacy spells he’d thrown at it upon entering.

Before he left, he leveled another accusing stare at his former mentor, the one whose wisdom he’d trusted with his very life. He couldn’t trust him now, not when he knew that that trust came at the cost of not one, but hundreds of innocent wizards and witches over the twenty odd years that Dumbledore’s war against Voldemort, of the thousands of people and magical beings that died in the Consumption that resulted from the war, of the very existence of magic.

“I’ll not hear of this nonsense again, Professors, and you would do well not to put yourselves in my way.”

He left and slammed the door behind him.

Outside, Lucius stood stock still, his steely grey eyes glinting in the firelight that lit the darkened corridor. “Such a sense of theatrics, Patter,” he drawled as Harry fell into step beside him. “Come along, it’s past curfew, and tomorrow, we both have class.”

If Harry’s sense of irony allowed him to appreciate that Lucius Malfoy was the lone voice of reason in the shitshow of an evening he’d had, he might’ve laughed.

* * *

In the morning before breakfast, Harry had had to sit through another conference with Slughorn, this time at least without Dumbledore in audience, in order to discuss the classes Harry would have to sit. He was thankful he’d managed to send out an order note to Madam Malkin’s for robes and other articles of clothing before Lucius had come to their dorm again to escort him back to Slughorn’s office, although he’d held off bothering to buy books. He had no intention of bother with classes, although perhaps a review of his knowledge in Runes and Arithmancy, and maybe a class of two in Muggle Studies just to get his bearings about over what the 1970s were like, might be in order. He’d had to take both subjects in Auror training, and Croaker had sent him on a boot camp in Arithmancy before he even put him to work on the Time Turner, but these classes had been years ago, and Harry felt certain he would need both if he was to calculate the exact moment by which he needed to take action to prevent the events of 1981 to 2017 in motion.

Consequently, he was running late by the time he’d made it to the Great Hall for a quick bite before his first class. Slytherin table was already empty of anyone with a green tie, but there were four familiar but very different figures he could see loitering near the table as if waiting for him to appear.

He groaned inwardly as he came face to face with an exact replica of himself, save for the fact that this face had hazel eyes, and the body that carried it didn’t appear to have bird bones as the base of its structure.

James Potter smiled cheekily at him in that manner that prickled Harry’s Auror instincts for trouble. “Hello, Patter. Fancy seeing you here.”

Harry scowled. He would truly have liked to spend time with his father, despite their age gap, he desperately wanted to know what his parents and Sirius and Remus were like before their lives all snuffed out before Harry got to know them as well as he’d wanted, but his stomach growled for sustenance and he was already running out of patience with dealing with arseholes who seemed to constantly want to suicidally throw themselves in his way.

“Of course you’ll see me here, Potter,” he muttered, trying and failing to dash through the gap between Sirius and Pettigrew.

Sirius shot out a hand to stop him, grinning maniacally, that winsome manic smile that Harry had missed so much. He’d never spent any time thinking much of having been thrown back into a time when the Marauders were still alive, and he ached to get to know his father and mother, but as he’d never known them, he didn’t know how to miss them. Sirius, on the other hand, had been taken from him too fast, too soon, and too painfully. He’d been given a taste of what it might have been like to have a godfather, someone who would also take his side regardless of the consequences or even morality of what his side might have represented, and it had been ripped out of his reach through his own impatient stupidity. He hadn’t given any thought to what it might have been like to have Sirius back, to have Remus back, and the reality of their smiling faces now, unmarred by the passage of time, misery and adversity, made something throb and snap inside of Harry that he suddenly felt himself on the verge of tears.

“Come on, Patter,” Sirius cajoled, his voice aristocratic, melodious and clear. Like the sound of clear water gushing in a stream. “We just wanted to get to know you before the snakes claim whatever’s left of you.”

“Pete, why don’t you pick out a sandwich for Mr Patter and we’ll talk with him on the way to class,” James said pleasantly, mischief sparkling in his eyes.

“Be nice, James,” Remus said quietly, though he was also grinning as the four of them herded Harry out of the Great Hall.

“I couldn’t help but notice that the new addition to our year not only ended up in Slytherin, imagine our collective surprise considering you look nothing like the pompous brats who’ve comprised the snake pit,” James said, laying a casual hand at Harry’s shoulder, even as Peter passed an egg sandwich to him, which he promptly stuffed into Harry’s mouth which he’d just opened to demand what sort of bigoted statement his father was saying about Slytherins as if there was something inherently wrong with the whole lot of them when there were only a handful of Dark-leaning evil wizards in their midst.

“Don’t forget the other sort, the greasier, sniveling sort,” Sirius piped up to raucous laughter among the four.

Harry scowled even more at the blatant dig at Snape. He _knew_ there was no love lost between Sirius and Snape, but this unprovoked attack on the unfortunate hygiene of the other boy was just not on.

“Don’t look like that, Patter,” James soothed. “I’m sure Sirius only meant that Snivelly needed a shower or two to look marginally human.”

“Maybe an acid dunk to kill all that grease,” Peter added with a mean-spirited snigger.

Harry shrugged off James’ arm, his scowl deepening, even as he chewed his sandwich furiously. “No one actually cares about your opinion on his hygiene, you know. If Snape wants to wear grotty pants, it isn’t hurting the lot of you, is it?”

“Ooh, fiesty,” Sirius crooned. Remus giggled. “I like him, Prongs.”

“And I don’t like _you_ ,” Harry snapped, not really meaning it but too annoyed to keep it to himself, elbowing past them towards the Charms classroom. “Leave Snape alone, Black, if you know what’s good for you.”

Sirius had the gall to look shocked. “What’d I say?”

He stomped away to find himself a seat, torn between whether he wanted to continue the uncomfortable conversation with his father and his friends, or if he wanted the peace and quiet that the gaggle of Slytherin boys sitting in the far side of the Charms classroom.

It took Harry all through Charms before he realized that James had charmed his black hair green between the time the group of them had walked Harry to Charms, and by that time, he was so tired of the laughing looks that both Gryffindor and Slytherin teens made at him that he’d forgotten that he’d also told himself to pay attention to sixth year Charms.


	4. Chapter 4

He was seething by the time his free period came at 11, an hour before lunch. The other boys in Slytherin went off to History of Magic, but Harry wasn’t interested in wasting any time sitting in a classroom with Binns. Even the time he’d spent between ages eleven to sixteen in his own timeline sitting and drooling sleepily in History of Magic was more than enough time wasted on the old ghost’s class. He hadn’t bothered to tell Slughorn to drop him out of it. He’d just struck it out of his schedule, and decided to spend his time outside in the sunshine. A walk around the Black Lake would clear his head.

Charming his hair back to its natural color had been simple enough. There wasn’t anything these limp-wristed schoolchildren could do to him that could truly harm him. He’d already proven that in his time shut up in the bowels of the Department of Mysteries. Croaker had tried at least a hundred ways to kill him in their mistaken belief that Harry’s death would stop the Consumption plague, since he would be basically dead and the siphoned magic would have nowhere to go. The Killing Curse had only been for starters. He’d weathered _Reductos_ , _Incendios_ , _Bombarda Maxima_ , entrail-expelling curses. He’d been beheaded, drawn and quartered, crucified (that one had been excruciating since his body took literal weeks to “die” before he slipped out and reappeared back, tugging himself off the cross, the nail marks healing as soon as he was on solid ground), crucified upside down (“Saul, you have to realize that Muggles thought the Devil would steal your soul if you’d been crucified upside down, and if some higher power isn’t interested in mine, who’s to say that the devil wouldn’t be?”) They’d even tried various muggle methods: slitting his throat, stabbing him in the heart, stabbing him in the head. Harry wasn’t sure where Croaker managed to procure the shotgun he’d once brought, or how he’d learned to use it, blew Harry’s brains out. He’d walked through the sodding Veil of Death and came out on the other side, utterly annoyed at the waste of his time for even bothering to walk to the Death Room.

Always, always, he would feel his essence wink out of existence. And then reality would snap back anew, bright, keen, insufferably real, his magical core pulsing as if offended by every futile attempt to end his life and stem the vacuum that his core presented to magic everywhere else.

And so, whether it was James charming his hair green, or Avery playing a mean-spirited prank on Harry with some obscure hex that felt a bit like Harry’s head was going to implode, like that time when Croaker died in his timeline, he had no trouble keeping himself alive. Harry had reversed the hex the moment his head started to hurt and grinned nastily at Avery until he started to scream for help before ending the hex. Avery had cringed away from Harry, and Harry spend the walk from Double Charms to History of Magicpretending to jab his wand at Avery, all the way til they reached History of Magic, at which point, Harry decided to bail.

He wasn’t interested in joining any classes, except on the occasional of interesting Charms or Transfiguration classes. He had Ancient Runes and Arithmancy in the afternoon, the two classes which he was in fact interested to join. He didn’t like being surrounded by noisy, petty, smelly children, even if said children included his parents. He didn’t want to be treated like a child himself, and Flitwick, who wasn’t in the know about his true origins, insisted on treating him as he did the rest of the sixth years. He wanted to walk out of Hogwarts to get a feel of the world he’d landed in, and maybe from there formulate a plan on what he was even meant to do in this timeline, but Slughorn had been adamant that Dumbledore was not letting Harry out into the wide world, where he could affect the lives of so many other people and change or ruin their lives in the future timelines of 1998 Harry Potter or in his own 2017 timeline.

He was sure that he was meant to do something in this timeline, otherwise that Afterlife train wouldn’t dump him here, but other than killing Voldemort, he hadn’t the faintest idea what it could possibly be. He could very well have been dumped in 1938 so he could stop Tom Riddle from ending up becoming Voldemort, or 1981, to prevent James and Lily Potter from being betrayed by Peter Pettigrew. There were so many possibilities. He couldn’t understand why it had to be 1977.

Huffing, he kicked a stone into the water, watching as it created tiny ripples for a few seconds before the surface returned to placid stillness.

He was restless. Harry had never been one who could sit around and wait for things to happen for him to react, not even when the apathy had set in his bones. He’d always been one who’d chased after the ends he wanted to achieve, and being contained now in Hogwarts felt more like being caged than being protected.

Moodily, he sank to the edge of the water, just under a tree. The Giant Squid was probably sleeping, considering how still the lake appeared. He’d have to plan to do something—anything, whether it was sneaking out of the castle, or skulking around the little junior Death Eaters in his dorm to find out whether their parents had any knowledge of Voldemort’s whereabouts. He’d probably also have to hunt the Horcruxes over again, maybe even do something about the Basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets, so it would never be able to be used by any other Parseltongue in the past or future.

He stared off in the middle distance. The weak sunlight of mid-autumn glinted on the surface of the water, lulling him.

Maybe tonight, after everyone had gone to bed, he would sneak out to the Room of Requirement to hunt down the Ravenclaw diadem Horcrux.

* * *

He woke to sunlight dappling through fluttering curtains.

Draco’s eyelids fluttered open as he lurched upright. He’d fallen asleep on the sofa again, the one that was in the solar that Astoria favored. He’d told himself a thousand times since she passed that he would never wallow in melancholy. But that was before death took Scorpius too.

In the silence of the summer afternoon, he could still see in his mind’s eye Astoria siting on the plush armchair upholstered in dainty yellow cream satin and embroidered with whimsical images of delicate wildflowers, as she read a book. Astoria loved Muggle detective fiction. Draco would probably never understand where she had unearthed such a hobby; she’d been brought up in a traditional pureblood household as he’d been and he’d never have picked such a pedestrian piece of literature to occupy the not inconsiderable amount of free time he had in his day. But Astoria picked up the strangest interests in such peculiar Muggle things.

Before they’d been married, his mother had warned him to keep an eye on his betrothed lest her interest in all things Muggle, an interest, it seemed, the rest of the Wizarding world shared after a war won by a boy who’d been brought up in the Muggle world and therefore kept up with changes in Muggle society, would soil her pureblood sensibilities. Draco, by this point in his life, scarred and brought to heel by being the poster boy for the losing side of a pureblood supremacy war, wasn’t in the least interested in his parents opinions.

Narcissa and Lucius privately maintained their sense of pureblood superiority, even after both being slapped with hefty fines that decimated the grandeur of the Malfoy estate, and in Lucius’ case, a lengthy house arrest. They no longer went about spouting their bigoted beliefs, but appeared to be of the persuasion that they somehow still held sway of what their son was meant to believe. And Draco believed in _nothing_ that his mother and father believed in now. He had to if he was to keep his sanity after the shitshow that his life had turned out to be after the war. He’d been seventeen, bloodied and broken, a Marked killer, and a convict. It wasn’t exactly the height of stellar parenting if his parents’ only child ended up the way he had.

Oh he certainly loved them still, but it was a love tainted and tempered by the damage they’d wrought over his life, not only for embroiling him in a conflict purely of their own making, but in indoctrinating him to their foul beliefs.

As it were, when he and Astoria married, Malfoy Manor was divided, with the East Wing belonging to the newly wed couple, and the West Wing were where his parents retired, with the grand dining room bisecting the Manor as a sort ofno-man’s land (aptly named now, since none of them could ever stomach a meal on the table where the Dark Lord’s pet snake made lunch out of Draco’s Muggle Studies Professor. Certainly not a way to encourage a warm atmosphere fit for dining and polite company.) Had he not drawn the trenches, he was fairly certain Astoria might have attacked her in-laws the minute they started spouting their nefarious propaganda at her. To say nothing of what she would have done if they’d tried to indoctrinate Scorpius.

Draco’s son had lived a meagerfour years, and two of those years spent with his mother already wasting away from the Consumption. He’d sheltered and protected his little family with every fiber of his being, and it felt like barely a blink of an eye that he’d had them before their existence had been so thoroughly snuffed out.

Even now that he imagined Astoria sitting in her chair, reading her Steve Patterson books, he imagined she would look up every now and then, first to glance to the left, where on the carpeted floor, Scorpius would be playing with his toy dragons and stuffed hippogriff (his mother had found Draco’s distaste for the creature hilarious, especially when she’d also taken the same Care of Magical Creatures with Hagrid and had loved the hippogriffs more than anything). Scorpius liked to babble fantastical stories at his different toys, all lined up on the carpeted floor, surrounding him like standing stones. Astoria would smile sweetly at first at the beautiful picture their son made in the solar, and then turn a mischievous eye and a private smile at Draco. That smile had held such a promise.

It felt like dust in Draco’s mouth.

He cast about, waving his wand for a quick _Tempus_ , and after ascertaining that it was barely 4 o’clock, decided against calling a house elf to send him some tea.

He found half a bottle of Ogden’s Finest on the far end table, and a tumbler with a scant trace of the liquor. A quick _Scourgify_ later and he was drinking to drown his sorrows.

Nothing made sense anymore. There had to be nothing else that there was for him. Astoria was gone. Scorpius was gone. And while it was true he still loved his parents and they were still alive, the love he felt for them had come to a point where it was no longer enough, no longer as strong as that desperation he’d felt when his father had first gone to Azkaban, and his mother, threatened with torture for his father’s failures by the Dark Lord. None of his friends from Hogwarts ever bothered to call on him since the war, their relationships strained by Draco’s mad reticence and desperation in sixth year.

Not even Potter was left, and Potter had been in every single moment of Draco’s failure. He’d seen him in that bathroom in sixth year, confessed to him at having witnessed his failure to kill Dumbledore. Saved him from _Fiendfyre_ , and from a lengthy stint in Azkaban when the war ended. He’d been the responding Auror when Draco reported Astoria dead, the same officer who’d held his hand and tried to comfort him no matter how awkwardly when Scorpius had been taken so very violently by Consumption. He’d been the Auror that responded at Nott’s theft and subsequent arrest.

Potter had been there when everything that Draco had left had crumbled, and his only hope pinned on the Time Turner Nott had attempted to steal. They’d spent two years on almost constant company, shut out from the outside world, deep in the Department of Mysteries, as Unspeakable and consultant, working their peculiar mix of theory and magic to fix the Time Turner.

And when finally, they had done what they could for the peculiar magical device, Potter had taken it and winked out of existence.

Draco hadn’t expected his disappearance could be quite so devastating.

He hadn’t known Potter was Unspeakable J, and they’d never exchanged so much as a casual conversation in any effort to get to know each other. It was futile anyway. The Unspeakables liked to keep their own counsel on things as unstable as human emotion and social connection, and not for the first time since Draco uncovered the Unspeakable as Potter did he wonder how the boy he’d known to be so effusive and expressive and so genuine in sharing his life could have transformed in that dried up husk of a person the Unspeakable had been.

Perhaps it came with the job, since the denizens of the Department of Mysteries had never been known to act even remotely human. They operated like intelligent golems or automatons, working, thinking, magicking, but never feeling. Perhaps it had been that Potter had suffered through as much loss as Draco had and had just simply chosen to repudiate the part of him that made him human.

Draco certainly had done that: thrown himself into research and theory so heavily that days would pass before he would remember that he’d spent so much time holed up in the Ministry, and that he had a life in Malfoy Manor, outside of the research on the Time Turner.

And now Potter had taken it, and disappeared. And he’d not been gone over a day and here Draco was wondering whether that poor fool had even managed to do what he’d meant to do to stop the spread of the Consumption, and save Wizarding Britain from collapsing in on itself. Even in his apathy, Potter had been such an idealist. And with the state of Wizarding Britain as it were, deaths continuing to pile up, Potter had probably, for the first time in his miserable life, failed at his quest.

The poor fool indeed. He sighed.

“Fuck, but you’re maudlin when you’re drunk.”

His head shot up and he looked around, but he was alone with his thoughts and the floating curtains still fluttering gaily in the summer breeze behind him. His father hadn’t come to check on him, though surely he would be about soon, complaining that Draco was neglecting his responsibilities as the Malfoy Heir in maintaining their estate. His mother hadn’t turn up to make sure that he didn’t drown himself in Firewhiskey, even though Draco was well on his way to getting pissed now if he’d already started talking to himself.

He stood up, wobbly with the amount of liquor he’d imbibed. He was sure he had some estate books to review, sitting somewhere here in the solar. That’s always what he had done while Astoria read and Scorpius played. He was sure to mangle his accounting with how drunk he was now. He didn’t care.

* * *

Harry blinked, the glare of the mid-day sun half blinding him as it reflected off the sheen of the calm waters of the lake. He felt out of sorts, a first since the Consumption started feeding his core with the vampirized magic of the wizards and witches who’d died. It was well past lunch time now, and his stomach cramped a little from hunger, but a sharp tang of melancholy made the hunger pangs crumble to dust in his mouth.

He got up from where he’d likely fallen asleep at the bank of the lake and jogged back towards the castle. Trust him to have fallen asleep outside in the middle of the day, and just up and dreamed about Malfoy of all people.

He probably didn’t even exist anymore.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the starting point of that Underage warning. I can't overstate it enough.

Contrary to his expectation that Croaker taught Defense of the Dark Arts before quickly moving on to his post in the Department of Mysteries after the curse on the position had run its course, the man actually taught an elective Harry was fairly certain had never been offered at Hogwarts, even to NEWT level students, called Curse-Breaking. He couldn’t _quite_ be sure of course, since so much of his Hogwarts years, especially the later ones had been occupied by Quidditch, chasing Cho and then Ginny, chest monsters, teen angst, and hanging over it all, the pall of Voldemort’s existence, and the shadow of prophecy.

 _Maybe_ Hermione had taken something to the effect of this class, possibly an advanced elective with her Ancient Runes class, but since Harry was now _old_ , and middle-aged, and somewhat of a dunce when he was younger (Malfoy’s opinion, really, not his), he couldn’t remember, but he was mightily grateful for it now as he entered the classroom, even though he’d hardly admit to it, especially if it meant that he’d had to thank Slughorn for his foresight in signing Harry up to classes that would be useful to his upcoming fight with Voldemort.

Now that he was attending, he could see how the course suited Croaker very well. The man was a genius at magical theory, but on top of that, he most certainly knew his shit where curses came from, and by consequence of the vastness of his knowledge, how to overpower, cheat, and maybe even break them. Harry mused for a moment as Croaker greeted his class with an absent-minded nod before magicking a chalk to write out the page of the book they were supposed to reference and underlined the page number three times (for emphasis, you know!), if Croaker’s knowledge of curses meant he was an expert at the Dark Arts, and the class was just Hogwarts’ effort in transforming an actual Dark Arts class into something quite less destructive and infinitely more conducive to a lucrative career later in life. If it were, then that would have been a good explanation for why the course was ultimately dropped from the Hogwarts curriculum, especially if some dodgy dark warlock took over after Croaker resigned his residency to move on to his work with the Ministry and the Unspeakables.

The Curse-Breaking elective was a small class of seven: Harry himself, a pimply-faced dark-haired Ravenclaw seventh year called Lynette Limphet, two gregarious redheads that could only be who Fred and George Weasley had taken after named Fabian and Gideon Prewett (Harry privately wondered at the lack of resemblance to the Molly Weasley that he knew, considering that Molly was these twins’ older sister. Maybe the Weasley/Prewett women really _didn’t_ age very well at all, and that was just objective observation given that Harry had loved Molly quite very much up to the point where Consumption took her in 2013, thank you), a much younger Narcissa Black, whose classically beautiful patrician features nearly made him go cross-eyed for how long he’d stared trying to figure out how such a beautiful woman could fall for the ferrety face of young Lucius Malfoy, a blond Hufflepuff youth by the name of Caradoc Dearborn, and the other ethereal, beautiful creature that looked straight out of a fairy tale, a young Sirius Black.

Harry had to double-take when Sirius sauntered into the classroom looking for all the world like a carefree Adonis striding out of Persephone’s Underworld, to sit himself on the shared work desk next to Harry. Sure, he’d met Sirius in the corridors on the way to Charms earlier that morning, and taken very little notice of what the boy Sirius looked like, especially when in the company of James Potter, whom Harry had been more excited to see (just to prove to everyone else in his timeline who’d endlessly repeated that he didn’t look _exactly_ like his dad, notice that James had a slightly higher forehead, thicker brows, a thinner, straighter nose, etc etc, but no really, he didn’t! Okay, maybe a little…) He’d further taken little notice of what each of the teenage Marauders had looked like when they started spouting bullshit about Snape, whom Harry didn’t quite give a rat’s arse about at this point, but whom he felt obligated to defend on account of the man having saved his miserable hide countless times during the war.

Now though, with James out of the picture, and in particular juxtaposed next to his equally beautiful (but just a hairline less perfect) cousin, Sirius was the very picture of an indolent young god lording grace and beauty over the unwashed masses that was the Curse-Breaking class. Harry couldn’t quite reconcile that odd desire to wax poetic over his godfather’s looks with just that very tiny inconvenient fact: Sirius was his godfather, and Harry, bless his fallible mortal little life, had just the tiniest little crush on him. Maybe.

Fuck, all right, he did, and he wasn’t particularly gay or anything. Certainly not even bisexual. He’d never looked at a man before and thought, _damn, that’s a piece of arse I’d not mind having a bit of_.

And therein lay his conundrum:

  1. Sirius Black was going to be his godfather in the not very far future. He was his father’s best friend, for crying out loud;
  2. Sirius Black in this timeline looked nothing like adult Sirius from Harry’s timeline, but of course he didn’t, he hadn’t gone to Azkaban yet. _This_ Sirius was the very picture of youthful, coquettish innocence, untouched by betrayal and misery and dementors; and
  3. Sirius Black was sixteen years old, and Harry Potter was thirty-six, middle-aged, experiencing selective memory lapses if he could no longer summon the memory of Azkaban-ravaged Sirius Black, the Sirius Black he’d known and loved, and a dirty old lecher, apparently.



Because he couldn’t stop staring at _this_ Sirius as the man—boy—whatever, dropped into the seat next to him, smirked, and brought out his book, leafing through the pages idly as if he hadn’t a care in the world, even though Narcissa sat at the other side of him and kept hissing at Sirius, but Harry couldn’t be bothered to try to figure out what about, since fairly everything in his busy buzzing mind had quite generously decided to completely blank out as this godling deigned to grace his lowly unwashed self with his attention.

“Mouth closed, Patter, or you’re going to start drooling,” Sirius said, quiet and cheeky, and sound finally returned to Harry’s awareness, as Croaker instructed them to pair up and pick up the artifact from which they would be studying the curse for the day.

Sirius turned another one of his cheeky smirks at him as Harry worked to roll his tongue back into his mouth, adjusted his glasses, and stood abruptly to walk to Croaker’s desk to pick up the artifact assigned to his table.

The Prewett were at Croaker’s desk as well, sniggering as they eyed Harry’s glassy-eyed stare and flaming ears.

“Happens to the best of us, Patter,” Gideon said as he pored over the selection of cursed jewelry.

“Even to the straightest of straight,” Fabian added in commiseration. “Haven’t we seen that on random occasions between Potter when he isn’t Lily-obsessed?”

Harry certainly wished he’d never found out that his _dad_ of all people had once harbored the same crush he had now for Sirius. If this line of conversation continued, he was sure he’d be quite put off dinner, and that was already saying something considering he hadn’t been able to have anything for lunch after falling asleep outside and dreaming of Malfoy. This lark of getting to know his parents and his parents’ friends before the war destroyed their lives was really turning up to be quite shit.

“Nah,” said Gideon, “Potter’s got tunnel vision where _that_ bird’s concerned.”

If Harry’s ears could get any hotter, he was sure they would combust.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” he muttered, as he pulled his kid gloves out of his robe pocket, slipped them on and picked up what looked like the sort of cheap costume jewelry necklaces that were sold in a London High Street chain store that catered to teenage girls. To the untrained eye, each of the three jewelry pieces on Croaker’s table looked unremarkable, but with Harry’s magic humming restlessly in his core over the heat of his embarrassment, he could almost see the winding dark threads of a curse, the flavor of which differed between each piece. He selected the one that housed a superannuation curse layered under what looked like a mild chain lightning hex. This was child’s play to a fully trained and blooded senior Auror, and an Unspeakable to boot.

“Keep telling yourself that, mate,” Fabian told him.

He scowled and hurried back to his desk, where Narcissa was having a whispered argument with Sirius over whether or not she could join them. Caradoc settled the argument by plopping down the empty chair in front of theirs and swinging back, arching an expectant eyebrow at Narcissa, who harrumphed and turned to join Lynette Limphet instead.

Caradoc snorted when he looked up at Harry’s face, but didn’t comment, so Harry magnanimously decided not to hex him. He’d have to figure out later what sort of comeback the Prewett twins had coming to them.

Once the three groups were settled, Croaker called their attention back to the front. “Who can tell me now what sort of curse each of your artifacts contain?”

“Aging curses,” one of the twins answered.

“Very good, two points to Gryffindor, Mr. Prewett,” Croaker said. “Aging curses affect the victim’s body’s assessment of the passage of time. There are three main categories of aging curses: age regression, age stasis, and superannuation. Can anyone tell me what practical uses we can find for aging curses?”

“Beauty creams, sir,” Lynette said. Beside her, Narcissa snorted derisively. Harry wondered if she was being facetious over Lynette’s obvious skin issues (Harry sorely wanted to introduce her to benzoyl peroxide), or if she meant to say that creatures as beautiful as her had no need of age stasis beauty creams because the renowned Black beauty was etched on skin as timeless as marble. If he ever got back to his own timeline where people were still alive and not miserably dying from a magical plague, he was fairly certain Pansy Parkinson would have invented age stasis creams based on the skin cells of Harry’s own face, given that he hadn’t aged at all.

“Two points to Ravenclaw, Ms Limphet. Anything else?”

“Sneaking in to Muggle discos without need for any Muggle papers?” Sirius said, and Caradoc and the twins sniggered knowingly. Harry eyed Sirius from the corner of his eye.

This time it was Croaker who snorted a laugh. “Certainly not one I would have expected, Mr Black, but I’ll give you the two points to Gryffindor anyway. Now, each of your artifacts is layered with a primary attack curse as an initial deterrent, meant to prevent theft. The primary attack curse typically dissipates after the first attack, or it would be too difficult to disarm when the artifact maker _wants_ the item to be stolen to wreak more havoc at a later date. This is why aging curses on artifacts are commonly used as the main deterrent for theft and pillaging: it’s slower acting, making it harder to overpower or break, and it’s self-regenerating, meaning the next person who handles the artifact unprotected may not be subject to the primary attack curse, but will most certainly be subject to the main deterrent curse, thus perpetuating the havoc and destruction it causes as the artifact passes from hand to hand in the act of fencing, thereby cursing not only the thief, but all who fenced the stolen good until it either goes back to the rightful owner for whom the curse does not work via a magical signature key, or it enters into a secure vault where the artifact will be stored until the curse is broken.”

The scratch of quill to parchment filled the air as six of the seven students frantically took notes. Harry didn’t bother. He knew the theory inside out; Malfoy waxed poetic over age stasis cursed artifacts when his hairline started to recede around the time he and Harry started working together on the Time Turner.

Croaker frowned when he noticed Harry did nothing but sit back in feigned nonchalance and contenting himself with staring at the way Sirius’ wavy black hair fell over the sides of his face like an obsidian waterfall, but he didn’t comment.

“Now that we have a general idea of the sort of cursed object we are examining, who can tell me what is the best way to handle such an object to prevent either the primary curse or the main deterrent curse from triggering?”

“Dragonhide gloves,” Sirius said, wiggling his gloved fingers in front of him. Harry decided he despised gloves of any sort if they were going to prevent him from studying the boy’s nimble fingers.

“Very good, Mr Black, another two points to Gryffindor. Dragonhide, as it is widely known, blocks the effects of most curses and is a Curse Breaker’s best friend. I see that all of you save Mr Patter have the standard issue dragon hide gloves required by the Curse Breaking elective.” Harry scowled at being singled out but Croaker continued imperturbably, “Mr Patter, care to explain why you’ve found the need to use non-standard and certainly not protective sheepskin gloves?”

Harry stared down at his kid gloves. “This is standard-issue Department of Mysteries kid leather gloves spelled permanently _Impervius_ and magic-repelling—similar to a Muggle repelling charm, except for magic.”

Croaker’s eyes bugged out. “And where would you have gotten this special-issue gloves, Mr Patter?”

Harry rolled his eyes. This was too easy. “You gave it to me,” he smirked. “Sir.”

* * *

Croaker called him out before he managed to slink out of the classroom at the end of the lecture. Harry’d thought the class interesting at the start, especially for teenagers looking to find a career in Curse-Breaking, but Croaker had spent so much time discussing theory and then assigning the class a five feet group essay on the theory behind age curses, that he’d zoned out completely, went back to daydreaming about what he was meant to do in this timeline (his list basically had two items in it: destroy Horcruxes, and kill Voldemort, and somehow it really didn’t eel like it was enough), and let Caradoc and Sirius take over the artifact handling. They hadn’t even gone into trying to break the primary curse. Harry was bored with this timeline’s Croaker and longed to work with the man he’d encountered thirty five years into the future. That Croaker, while still boring and obsessed with theory rather than action, at least had ideas. He wondered at what point of Croaker’s career had the man turn from being the dry pedant who did nothing more than rehash book knowledge to the man keen on investigating unknown magic, and fingered the odds and ends of the Time Turner in his pocket.

“What?” he said as he sloped towards Croaker’s desk.

“I want to know how you came by those gloves, for starters, Mr Patter,” Croaker said, voice even. The man had never been one whose feathers were easily ruffled, not even when he’d gotten frustrated over the persistent failure of their attempts to end the spread of the Consumption by killing Harry.

“Er, you gave it to me,” Harry replied. He peered over his shoulder for any stragglers in the room, shrugged when he saw no one, and threw up a privacy spell anyway. “I resigned my badge from the Aurors when Ginny and I got divorced, and turned myself into the Department of Mysteries, to study how I was connected to the Magical Consumption plague.”

“Fascinating,” Croaker said as he held a hand out and Harry wriggled his left hand out of his glove to hand it over to Croaker to study. “Suppose I should get myself one of these; those dragon hide gloves do little to improve the finger dexterity when it’s needed the most. People are liable to break the cursed artifact they’re handling with how clumsy particularly stiff new dragon hide gloves can be. They’re mostly suited for Herbology, but not the best choice for handling cursed objects.”

Harry rolled his eyes. More pedantic theory posturing. Great. “Was that really all?”

Croaker shook his head. “I noticed you didn’t bother to take any notes. You don’t have a book, you didn’t bother to borrow Black’s book to look the curses up, and you weren’t even paying attention when we discussed spell layering.”

“Of course not,” Harry huffed. “I’ve been doing this with you for five years in the timeline where I came from, and before that, I worked in the Dark Arts Investigative division of the Aurors. I know shit like this like the back of my hand. How do you think I knew how to pick the one with the superannuation curse on it?” He didn’t say that with his magical core hopped up on magic steroids from sucking out all the excess magic of the plague victims, his vision had attuned to magic so eerily as if he could actually _see_ the tendrils of inert magic, or that he could probably have unraveled the curses with the snap of a finger.

“Truly a marvel,” Croaker said. “I wondered if—“

Harry waved off whatever bogus theory he wanted to discuss next. He hadn’t time to waste on moot points. “Listen, I realized earlier that I might need your help with something anyway. I told you last night that I’m here specifically to stop Voldemort’s rise to power and escalating the conflict into a full scale war with the Ministry, right?”

“War?” Croaker said, horrified. “That can’t be—You Know Who certainly is powerful, but I hardly think he has the numbers to go to war with the Ministry of Magic.”

“And that’s how I know this generation was nearly wiped out during the First Wizarding War,” Harry muttered, disgruntled. “You all want to bury your heads in the sand and pretend that Voldemort isn’t gathering his own following to stage a coup. By the time things escalate into all-out war, none of you are prepared and you all just drop out like flies.”

“But what would you have us do?” Croaker demanded. “You Know Who as done nothing to warrant any sort of retaliation from the Ministry. I know Dumbledore believes You Know Who is connected to some of the strange disappearances that have happened lately, but that, to me, just sounds like the paranoid suspicions of an old man.”

Harry had to make an effort not to roll his eyes. “An old man who eventually turns out to be right if my existence as I am is anything to go by.”

“But you just said that the way you are has been the result of Dumbledore’s miscalculations for how a fight with You Know Who turned out,” Croaker reasoned. “Harry, I _know_ all the suspicions that circulate among the wizarding community, I do. But the timeline you’ve dropped into is a world at peace. Rocking this peace by targeting the sector of the magical community that You Know Who represents is dangerous, suicidal even. He’s gaining support from most of the old Pureblood families, and these families are the ones who control political power in the Ministry. You could find yourself with a one-way ticket to Azkaban if you fought him openly.”

If Harry wasn’t so entrenched in the ennui he felt over years of misery and despair and loneliness, that might have sounded reasonable to him. Instead, it only incensed the part of him that bristled at any sort of defense that the Pureblood superiority rhetoric and its strongest proponent. He had friends who died in a war fighting that bigotry and yet the people of this timeline wanted to ignore how damaging it was to the general wizarding population. Not for the first time since he’d ended up here, he wondered if this was even a cause worth fighting for—the perpetuation of _this_ hopeless world. At least in 2017, the wizarding community at large had opened their eyes to the damage and divisiveness pureblood rhetoric engendered. Sure, the steps taken by the Ministry hadn’t worked entirely all too successfully, but at least people were _trying_. Here, it seemed like everyone just wanted to stuff their heads up their arses and pretend nothing was wrong, and Harry just wasn’t the right person to try to rectify deeply entrenched beliefs of this sort.

He wondered if bringing Malfoy back into this time with him would have resulted in a different argument with Croaker. Certainly Malfoy had had to deal with the reversal of his opinions much more personally than Harry had, and he would probably be more eloquent in his reasoning for fighting against his old bigoted beliefs. Harry mostly just wanted to smash the proverbial ivory tower that the purebloods had shut themselves up in and lay waste to anything and everything that Voldemort represented.

“You know what, if you want to keep acting like the oblivious dancing monkey the whole lot of you here are, be my guest. I have better things to do with my time than listen to you argue your way into inaction.” He waved a hand and the privacy bubble fell. “I’ve nothing else to say to you at the moment, Professor, but I might call when I need help on that side project I mentioned.”

He left the classroom before Croaker could get another word in edgewise. Outside, Narcissa and Sirius were standing in the corridor still hissing at each other. Harry was glad his ears had stopped throbbing and his eyes no longer drawn to every little movement Sirius made, and that made him thankful for the realization that no, he wasn’t a lecher perving on the boy that would grow up to be his godfather.

The two Black cousins seemed to have picked up the argument they’d had when Sirius first arrived to class, some rot about how he should carry himself with the dignity that befitted his station, instead of sloping about Hogwarts like a deranged hooligan. Harry had to give it to Narcissa for the almost prescient quality of her observation; it was like she described Sirius to a T from when he escaped from Azkaban in Harry’s third year.

“Black,” he greeted, and both cousins scowled and turned to stare at him. He grinned. “Mr Black, sorry, Narcissa.”

She sniffed at the shabbiness of his transfigured robes, and turned back to Sirius but only to say, “Remember what Aunt Walburga said,” and then she was walking away.

Harry stared at her retreating back bemusedly. “They always like that?”

Sirius, for all that he’d had his hackles raised and ready to spring into a catfight with his very female cousin, slumped as soon as Narcissa was out of earshot. “Yeah.”

This time, the bolt of concern that shot through Harry had nothing to do with intentionally obtuse idiot professors who wanted to bury their heads in the sand, or even with his completely inappropriate interest in his godfather’s younger self. In the short two years he’d gotten to know the adult Azkaban-ravaged Sirius from his timeline, he’d never once heard that tone of defeat from the man. Sirius had been troubled, disturbed even after spending so many years in Azkaban, tormented by dementors, but he’d never been this diffident, unsure and defeated-sounding man that Harry faced now.

“What did she tell you about your mother?” Harry asked quietly, wondering if he should perhaps have Narcissa Black find out just how distasteful the new student in Slytherin house could be.

Sirius shook his head, dove grey eyes still trailing wistfully after Narcissa for a moment, before the defeated expression wiped from his face and he turned to Harry, all cocky teenage bravado once again, though the smug entitlement that pervaded his posture never reached his eyes.

“So, what can I do for you, Patter?” He frowned minutely, cocking his head as he looked up at Harry’s face. “Anyone ever tell you you’d be a dead ringer for Ev—never mind. You probably don’t know her, seeing as you’re in Slytherin.”

Harry eyed Sirius for a moment, wondering what it was in his face that Sirius saw to compare to his mother, instead of his father. At the moment, he had no time to puzzle it out, not when he could see Sirius still hurting after whatever it was Narcissa had said to him. He wondered if this sort of vulnerability in the brash young man made itself commonly known to boys who he’d never met before.

He might have made a comment on it, but Sirius’ arched one finely sculpted dark brow at him expectantly, and Harry realized with a sinking sensation deep in his gut that if he wanted to be taken seriously in a conversation with his godfather over the type of damaging comments the Black family made, he would never be able to do it in this timeline, given that a) he was not friends with Sirius and Sirius didn’t know him in this timeline, and b) Sirius probably wouldn’t trust a Slytherin far enough to throw them, and he most definitely wouldn’t trust Harry to discuss the way his family heaped psychological abuse on him.

He shook his head minutely to clear himself of these morose thoughts. _If_ his efforts in stopping Voldemort in this timeline and saving his own timeline from the Consumption plague ever panned out, then _maybe_ he’d finally be able to devote time to try to help his godfather reconcile the betrayal he felt over his family abusing him to perpetuate their bigotry. If he didn’t somehow disappear into the ether after he completely unmade the timeline he came from. Inappropriate crush notwithstanding, Harry had a duty to Sirius to keep him from ending up the sad lonely tormented man he’d become in Harry’s timeline.

“Er, the artifact from Croaker’s lecture,” he said instead. It was difficult to concentrate when those painfully expressive blue-grey eyes were turned on him. “Do you have it or did Dearborn take it?”

Sirius eyed him warily. “Why? What did you want to do with it? You can’t tell me you’re going to handle the research portion of this artifact project. You weren’t even listening to Croaker’s lecture.”

“I need to—“ He paused and changed tack. Sirius was a Gryffindor and for all that Harry looked like his parents, both of whom were also Gryffindor, there was no way he was going to trust that Harry wouldn’t have some nefarious plot with the artifact, not with Harry wearing a silver and green tie, and for however long this feud between the Marauders and the Slytherins had gone on, Harry was sure Sirius wouldn't believe him if he, a Slytherin, wasn't the least bit underhanded, sneaky, and not a bit malicious. “If I tell you I plan to prank my roommates with it, will you give it to me?”

Mischief sparkled in Sirius’ eyes, suffusing his porcelain face with the glow of the promise of adventure. “A prank on Snivellus by one of his own? This I’d pay good money to see.”

Harry arched a brow, thinking quickly. “Ten Galleons and I’ll make it happen where you can see it.”

The boy fished into his book bag, snagging the dinky necklace with the edge of one of his dragon hide gloves. “Done.” His other hand dropped the gold into Harry’s outstretched palm. “Pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Patter.”

The grin he bestowed on Harry stayed with him all through Care of Magical Creatures, bathing Harry’s bland, boring, apathetic, grey world with a rose-tinted glow. Maybe there was something to this timeline after all that he’d been meant to do apart from laying waste to Voldemort’s forces. The jaunt in his step didn’t fade for the rest of the day, earning him suspicious glances from Mulciber and Snape, all the way until past curfew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I ended up having to note down everything that happened to Harry before he ended up in 1977. Whew! That's a lot of things to happen to any single one person. No wonder he's so messed up.


	6. Chapter 6

Croaker’s necklace project lasted all of a half hour before Harry’s magic-on-steroids overwhelmed it.

He _knew_ none of the teachers would allow him off school grounds. Maybe not all the professors knew who or what he was, but with the beady-eyed looks he’d received from Sprout, Flitwick and Kettleburn (that had been a surprise—Harry almost hadn’t recognized the old Professor Hagrid had replaced for Care of Magical Creatures, what with him still having all of his limbs) when he’d stepped out of the Great Hall after his last class ended told him that Dumbledore, Slughorn, Croaker and McGonagall may not have shared his origins, but they’d certainly passed on Dumbledore’s intentions of keeping him in the school to prevent him from further interacting with the outside world and changing the future.

The surveillance pissed him off utterly. It was a bit like being an actual teenager, expected to Fuck Everything Up all over again. He was an adult, damn it, and he knew what the fuck he was doing.

He slipped the necklace on under his robes, weathered the snap of electricity jolting his bones but ultimately causing him no lasting harm, and waited the few minutes it took for the superannuation curse to take hold.

By the time he reached the Hogwarts gates, no one gave him a second glance. The aging curse weathered and wrinkled his face, pulled his lips tighter into his skull, and finally gave him a full beard.

The short walk to Hogsmeade halted at the outskirts of town, near the Shrieking Shack, because the cursed necklace had finally aged him enough that he felt a bit like his bones were creaking, and the cool late afternoon autumn air made his joints snap and crackle, like he was an arthritic octogenarian. He had time only to cast a Notice-Me-Not spell on himself before the curse snapped under the force of his magic and he was back to looking seventeen and baby-faced all over again, but it was enough. The curse would regenerate slowly back on the necklace, since he hadn’t broken it. Harry didn’t want to completely render the curse defunct and deprive himself of an excuse to sit in his godfather’s presence outside of class while they worked on breaking the curse on the artifact, and he only really needed the necklace so he wasn’t recognizable while he slipped out of the school grounds

Hogsmeade in the late 70s look no different from the Hogsmeade that he remembered from his own schooling years, or when he visited Teddy in school, back before he’d holed up in the Department of Mysteries. The main street lined with stores still had the familiar names, except perhaps that in this day and age, Zonko’s still occupied the shopfront next to Honeydukes. People who walked out in the streets did so without fear of being accosted by Death Eaters.

So Croaker was right; the Wizarding world wasn’t at war. Not yet anyway. There were small children chasing after a miniature toy Quaffle that jumped and bounced down the cobblestone street, quaintly dressed men in robes and top hats doffed their hats at women in fancier looking robes in bright gem colors, or full-skirt dresses. All of them appeared utterly oblivious to the looming darkness they would face in less than three years.

Harry thinned his lips and canceled his Notice-Me-Not charm. He’d told himself he wouldn’t bother with the classes, but after Charms and Curse-Breaking, it appeared there were still a few tricks even an old dog could learn—or re-learn as it were. While he’d zoned out of Care of Magical Creatures, he’d made a mental list of a few other things he was going to need that he hadn’t bothered with an owl order.

Clothes were taken care of but they hadn’t arrived, and Harry wasn’t keen on having to transfigure his grotty handkerchief into a sleeping shirt again that night. The casual robes sold in Gladrags were far too odd for his tastes (and far too shrill-sounding if he failed to _Scourgify_ them when they got soiled, apparently) He found serviceable (and not screaming) black robes to work as a uniform, a fur-lined cloak for the coming winter, and a few pairs of socks that only made his feet itch if they became too smelly as opposed to yelling at them to clean them. He would have to find a way to get to a Muggle town for more practical clothing later on, and he didn’t fancy Apparating to London if the London of this era was nothing like the London he knew.

It was refreshing to meet a shopkeep who didn’t instantly recognize him and offer him a discount, although Harry felt a twinge of remorse at having to spend James Potter’s money, when the boy clearly had no idea who Harry really was. He supposed it didn’t matter—James was his dad, and anyway the Gringotts vault would be controlled by his grandfather, whom he’d assumed had to still be alive somewhere, and if they knew who he was, he hoped they wouldn’t be too put out with him nicking a couple of Galleons so Harry didn’t freeze his bollocks off having nothing to wear.

Dogweed and Deathcap’s herbology shop was next. Although he hadn’t given much thought to his father and his father’s friends, seeing Sirius in Curse-Breaking reminded him that Remus would still be suffering through his transformations, even though he probably did so by now with the rest of the Marauders in their animagus forms. He recalled that the lot of them managed it by fifth year, so he supposed the full moon was better for Remus this year than it had been any of the years prior. That didn’t mean the werewolf transformation was a walk in the park, nor that it eased Remus’ mind any that he had no control over himself during the full moon.

The Wolfsbane potion hadn’t been invented yet by this time, but Harry had learned it by heart in his timeline as soon as the war was over. He and Andromeda had been mortally afraid that Remus would pass his affliction to his son, and between the two of them, had done their utter best to know the formula for Wolfsbane potion in case Teddy ever showed any signs.

He paid for potion ingredients he wouldn’t be able to find in the school greenhouses, just enough to concoct the potion for a good six moons, and stopped by Ceridwen’s next door to pick up a few cauldrons. He could probably strong-arm Slughorn to relinquish a brewing room for him where he could stash the potions in stasis until he could either trick Remus into taking it, or befriend him enough that he would trust whatever potion he foisted on him. Befriending might be a hard sell, what with their different Houses, but Harry resolved to worry about it another day. Now was the time for baby steps. After all, he was all-powerful now, but that didn’t mean he was likable. If anything, most of Slytherin found him constantly cross and surly, and after the mean-spirited revenge prank he’d played on Avery, probably shat themselves to pieces if any of them had to approach him.

Next was the book shop. He had no need for purchasing any of the school books since he had no desire to relearn elementary spell-casting, but he needed a map of Britain if he wanted to be able to get around stealthily enough when he went hunting for Horcruxes that he didn’t Apparate into solid walls. He’d have to peruse the Restricted section of the library if he was to find anything on the type of curse-breaking he needed to handle the Horcruxes better. Tomes and Scrolls didn’t look like it carried books Dark enough to have that sort of knowledge.

His last stop was the broom shop. This was certainly a frivolous buy, but he couldn’t imagine having to live through his sixth year as an old man without at least indulging in some Quidditch. He made small talk with the sort looking witch who ran the store, drawing little bits and pieces of the world beyond the walls of Hogwarts before sending a private apology to Fleamont Potter and biting the bullet on a Nimbus 2. It wasn’t the latest or fastest model, and Harry would forever miss his Firebolt and all its newer incarnations that were now lost to the ether, but it should be enough for him to enjoy Seeking, if not do Slytherin a favor by winning the House Cup.

He wondered who among his roommates were on the team, if they were any good. He realized he knew nothing about these younger incarnations of the Death Eaters he’d hunted after the war, and that needed rectifying in case he they either ganged up on him and he needed to fight them, or better still, in order to prevent those snot-nosed pimply-cheeked brats from joining up with Voldemort.

The Three Broomsticks was brighter, newer, and the tables significantly better varnished than he remembered. Behind the counter, Rosmerta was a young, buxom blond woman in her mid-twenties, with cheerful green eyes and ruddy cheeks. For a moment, Harry was sorely annoyed with himself that he hadn’t thought to put on the necklace now instead so he looked about age-appropriate to flirt with the pretty barmaid. Well, there’d be time for that later.

“Mr Potter!” she greeted cheerfully as she idly polished the varnished wood of her counter. “School’s not a Hogsmeade day today, I know. I’m surprised you’re not skulking about in secret. No young Mr Black today with you?”

Harry was confused for a moment before he realized she’d mistaken him for James. This could be useful then, if she did. He didn’t like lying to the barmaid as to his identity, especially not after what she’d gone through during the war in his timeline, but he supposed needs must. Pity, that meant no real flirting. She’d been pretty in his day in school, but she was a marvel now in her prime.

“Ah, he couldn’t make an adventure out of the first day,” he lied as he took a seat at the empty bar. “His parents are after his hide to make a better year for his NEWTs.”

Rosmerta laughed, her voice like tinkling crystal. Between her, Narcissa and Sirius, Harry thought he had trouble enough without being infatuated with all these young people decades younger than he actually was even if he didn’t look it.

“That’ll certainly do it. I heard tell Mrs Black had not been best pleased with his Potions performance last year. Something about a pretty muggleborn redhead who’s taken the Potions OWL by storm and whose skirts you’ve been chasing?” Her eyes twinkled, and Harry goggled to realize that Rosmerta had probably been witness to his father’s ham-handed approach to wooing his mother.

“Er, right,” he muttered self-consciously. Should he pretend to wax poetic about Lily Evans’ eyes or hair? He’d already weirded himself out with how attracted he’d been to Sirius. The last thing he needed was having to pretend to be in love with his own mother. “What’s the news in town, then?”

Rosmerta busied herself with pouring him a mug of Butterbeer as if on autopilot. “The summer’s been quiet. You know business is never as good as when you kids are underfoot, but all this talk on the wireless and in the papers about You Know Who recruiting among the young children of the Wizengamot is bad news. There’s rumor they were involved in the disappearance of Demetria Wells from the Office of Misuse of Magic. Her assistant, Arthur Weasley’s been terribly swamped, what with him just being out of Hogwarts and thrust into taking on the full weight of her role. I imagine we’re going to see a rise of mischief against Muggles before long, not that You Know Who’s faction hasn’t taken credit for much of that. But with Ms Wells out, it’s going to be an uphill climb to put a stop to the Muggle-baiting.”

She grimaced at that before shaking her head and turning an amiable smile back at him. Harry was now utterly regretting his decision to pretend to be his father. He wondered if Rosmerta even found it strange that James Potter sported the wild long hair Harry had allowed himself to grow, or if she found the messy ponytail he wore rugged and manly.

“Anyway, enough grim sort of news for you, young man. It’s not my place to ruin a perfectly good childhood spent in Hogwarts, and you’ll get to know real life soon enough.” They shared a laugh, Harry snickering darkly at the suggestion that his own childhood had been as sheltered and cherished as he knew his father had experienced. “Tell me about school and this young redhead of yours.”

Harry pretended that he knew anything about Lily Evans, and tried to ignore the queasy feeling in his stomach at having to talk her up as if he knew and fancied her. They chatted about regular everyday things: the state of politics in the Wizengamot, the hardline stance Barty Crouch was taking on ne’er-do-goods, the various teams chances at winning the Quidditch league, before he’d had enough of 70s era gossip, and paid for his drink. Rosmerta shooed him out to the street as dusk started to gather shadows.

The day hadn’t been a waste entirely. He’d met his father, bonded a bit with his godfather, even though he’d been completely weird about it with his utterly inappropriate crush on the boy, and gotten himself some bits of useful information. Before he left, he turned back to Rosmerta.

“Do you know the name of the nearest Muggle town?”

Rosmerta’s eyes crinkled at her teasing smile. “Now, don’t you try to pretend I’m giving you ideas, Mr Potter. I know you’ve been in Steeplechase with your Mr Black at least twice last year, and I’ve heard tell Minerva’s given you the detentions of a lifetime after that particular adventure. Off with you now.”

Harry smiled his most winsome, toothy grin at the woman, who actually blushed and averted her eyes, before he slipped out into the street. It was still fairly light outside, but the air was bracing now, and he hurried back to the school gates. He had enough time to make it back to the Great Hall before dinner, and then a few things to set in motion: bully Slughorn into giving him his own brewing room, pretend to do homework to be seen among his fellow Slytherins as to not arouse suspicion, maybe get to talking to some of them if he could talk them out of joining up with Voldemort after they leave school, and then, after curfew, the Room of Requirement and the Ravenclaw diadem.

* * *

Harry didn’t expect that the fruitful day he’d had would extend into his evening. He was well-expecting to have a tough time already trying to sneak out t start his Horcrux hunting mission, especially with the Head Boy in his house and especially when that Head Boy was someone like Lucius Malfoy, who he’d seen throughout the day to skulk about in the most inconvenient places to catch any fellow student in places they shouldn’t be at (in the corridors making mischief instead of sitting in class) while at the same time pretending he was too important for such a menial job. He was a bit like if Filch had a well-groomed, well-spoken lovechild with Percy Weasley, packaged in sleek blond hair and lily-white skin: all the nastiness packed in Draco’s impeccable smart clothing, sprinkled liberally with Percy’s air of pompous self-importance.

Lucius was insufferable though, but at least he wasn’t deliberately, violently cruel.

Harry’s initial thoughts of trying to sway any of the Slytherin boys whom had joined Voldemort in his timeline sounded a bit like wishful thinking on his part, that noble part of his core that hadn’t completely died out yet from the shit life he’d lead after the war. He only had a vague plan of maybe talking to whoever was at the top of the Slytherin food chain if he caught them out trying to sneak meetings with actual Death Eaters when school let out on a Hogsmeade day.

He didn’t actually count on the fact that Rosier’s offhand remark about him being a poor muggleborn adding unnecessary strain on the social systems that the Ministry offered wizardkind in Britain to be an incendiary in a powder keg of hatred against non-Purebloods already existing within the Slytherin dorms.

In hindsight, perhaps it may not have been the smartest move on his part to do his shaving before he went to bed, but he was expecting to have a long night skulking outside after everyone had gone to bed to look for the diadem, and he didn’t want to have to bother with non-essential parts of morning ablutions the next day if he could help it.

All of the boys in his dorm had already retired to their room, which was why he had no trouble taking a wand to his face and using it to conjure a straight razor at the tip and taking that to his skin.

He was done with the right half of his face already and was working on his left jaw, when a flash of red light shot out from one of the toilet cubicles and hit his wand hand. The conjured razor slip and slid on his skin like a heated knife to butter, and before he knew it, a veritable fountain of arterial spray was pouring out of his jugular. The flash of the cutting spell blinded him to another jet of light shooting from the other side of the room, immobilizing him like those Cornish pixies Lockhart had unleashed in his second year DADA class.

There was a surprised yell from just outside the open bathroom door, and through the blood-spattered haze on his glasses, he thought he saw Mulciber hunkered in the cubicle, face unrepentant and smug. From the other side of the bathroom, Snape stared with rapidly dawning horror, before dashing out and yelling for Lucius at the top of his lungs.

Vaguely, Harry thought he might have been too complacent in handling the Slytherins, with the mean but ultimately not life-scarring way that he’d put Avery in his place, and he wondered how long he it would take for him to bleed out and then come back to life, the same way he always had whenever he died. It wouldn’t do for any of the Slytherins to know about the extent of his magic, not this early and certainly not to the extent that he cannot die.

“What in the—Snape! What the fuck did you do now?!” That was Lucius, he was sure.

He could hear slippered feet stomping outside the bathroom, and for the life of him wondered why he himself was not moving, even as his knees felt weak, and his vision felt faint around the edges. He remembered testing death by exsanguination with Croaker in his timeline, but after the attempt at crucifixion, Croaker had been more merciful with the slower methods of death and murder, and had cleaved his throat almost in half, resulting in him dying almost instantaneously. This slow slide into death wasn’t something he cared to relive, but he was rapidly becoming too weak to do anything more than prevent his magic from swelling overmuch and healing the wound on his neck on its own.

“There’s so much blood!” Snape wheezed from somewhere above him. He hadn’t even realized he’d fallen to the floor.

Lucius was yelling at Mulciber to get a bunch of towels. Snape sprang into action, barreling down the hall and into the dorm rooms to swipe clean towels from the fussy Rosier’s stack. Lucius had done something to trap Mulciber in the toilet stall and Harry wished he had the wherewithal to summon Myrtle to splash a bit of toilet water on his attacker as a sort of petty response, but he was fading fast, and the last thing he remembered was Lucius and Snape uttering whatever sixth- and seventh year healing spells they knew to try to save the dying boy’s life.

When he next came to, he’d been unceremoniously dumped on a plush couch that he thought incongruous with the notoriously Spartan facilities of the Department of Mysteries Time Room. His glasses were no longer on his face and he could make out the hazy outline of a pale face haloed in hazy bright hair hovering over his face.

“Malfoy?” he croaked, blinking rapidly and casting about with a clumsy hand for his glasses. He hadn’t expected that he and Malfoy would test his death again since he’d already gone through it a hundred times and then some with Croaker. Malfoy may adopt that sad sack face of his 98% of the time around Harry these days, but he was sure there was still that 2% that would be viciously pleased at attempting to kill the Boy Who Lived after years of schoolboy enmity.

There was a noise of amusement, followed by a dark feminine voice pronouncing, “He’ll live.”

Harry scrambled to a sitting position and twitched his hand to summon his glasses to his face. For a moment, he was hopelessly confused at where he was, before he remembered that no, he wasn’t at the DoM. That pale face hovering above him wasn’t Malfoy, but Malfoy’s mum in her teenage incarnation. The year was 1977 and Harry had cocked up his death and gone back in time instead.

Narcissa straightened from the crouch she’d adopted in front of Harry’s face with a scowl that marred her delicate features. “What in Merlin’s name happened here, Lucius?” she demanded, head cocked imperiously, as she put her hands to her shapely waist clad in a silken dressing gown. If she’d been a looker before in her school robes and fifth year prefect badge, she was a vision now in a diaphanous pale cream nightgown visible only partially at the delicate curve of her collarbone before being hidden by the dark dressing gown she wore.

Lucius—teenage Lucius—was a picture of frustrated impotence as he glared at Mulciber and Snape, both adopting identical mulish expressions. “That’s what I’d like to find out myself, Cissa. I’d only just got back from meeting with Slughorn and the deputy headmistress, when Snape started yelling loud enough to wake the dead. Imagine my surprise when I walked to the boys’ bathroom greeted by the scene of a bloody murder and Mulciber looking for an advanced guard into Azkaban.” He cocked an imperious blond brow at the two sixth years. “Care to explain here or do I have to get Slughorn involved?”

Mulciber glared hatefully at Harry. “He’s a mud blood, Lucius. What other explanation do you need?”

Lucius adopted a falsely pensive expression. “Ah, Patter is a mud blood. And I suppose that’s explanation enough for you to commit murder within the walls of Hogwarts, _before you even finished school?_ You are beyond fortunate that Andromeda had gone straight to bed after the seventh year prefect meetings, or you would be out of Hogwarts faster than you can even draw breath." He sounded exactly like how Harry remembered an adult Lucius chastising an unrepentant Draco for touching things he wasn’t to touch within Borgin and Burke. That had been second year.

“No one would find out,” Snape hissed. His face was still pale and he had a bit of Harry’s blood smudged on his cheek where the arterial spray probably hit him when Harry turned around to find who his attackers had been.

“We would’ve hidden the body,” Mulciber added, clearly not very bright.

“You would’ve hidden the body,” Lucius repeated condescendingly. “And then did it occur to you what would happen if Slughorn or the headmaster decided to look for a missing student? If they tasked the house elves instead of Filch to search for Patter?”

“They wouldn’t’ve found him,” Snape said mutinously.

“Ah,” said Lucius. He seemed to be on a roll and Harry could see all the vicious, sarcastic shades of Draco has he ruthlessly drilled logic into Mulciber and Snape’s idiotic plans for committing murder. “Nobody would find the mud blood’s body, but people would still continue to ask questions, yes? Questions like who were the last people who’d seen him before he died? Surely not the boys in his dorm room, don’t you think, Cissa? Surely no one would ask Avery, who doesn’t know that you pulled stunts like this. Or maybe Macnair, whose brain resides in his wand arm. Or maybe Rosier, who’s _my cousin?_ ”

Snape was unrepentant. “We’re not snitches. Who would take the side of a mud blood?”

Harry snorted, having enough of the volley of nonsensical statements. “I’m not even muggleborn.” Didn’t matter anyway if Mulciber and Snape succeeded in doing him in. His magic would just bring him back.

"Being muggleborn is not exactly a ringing endorsement in this company, Patter," Lucius said, a touch drily.

At this Narcissa actually smiled. “Spoken like a true Slytherin, though, don't you think, Lucius? Only out to cover his hide." She turned to Harry. "If only you could inject some of the same self-preservation in _my_ cousin, before he got himself into real trouble he can’t wriggle out of, running about with that blood traitor, Potter.”

Harry scowled and understood now what Narcissa had argued with Sirius about earlier in the day. She’d thought he was James and had tried to dissuade him and Sirius from working together. He felt a warm glow in his chest for how loyal his godfather was, both to James and to him now, apparently, even if Sirius barely knew him. Maybe he hadn’t had the best impression of the Marauders when they first met in the morning, but it looked like the beginning of a fruitful friendship with Sirius at least. And with Sirius on his side, it wouldn’t take long for him to be able to get closer to his parents, to Remus. Maybe he could even stop Peter from betraying James and Lily when the time came.

All it would really take from him was a bit of planning, and using the leverage he had with Sirius. It probably meant he had to make good on his promise to prank Snape publicly, where the Marauders could see. Then again, given that Snape nearly succeeded in doing him in, he wasn’t very much inclined to look nicely on the teen incarnation of his former teacher. Didn’t matter that Snape had saved his life countless times in his timeline. Harry’s life hadn’t counted for anything to Snape in his time, and he was fairly certain, with the way the boy glowered at him now as Lucius tore him and Mulciber a new one, there was certainly no love lost between them. He would relish a good revenge, no matter how petty it made him.

* * *

“What happened to your face?”

The attack in the dorm bathrooms hadn’t made it outside of the Slytherin common room that night. Lucius was hellbent on protecting Snape and Mulciber from the threat of expulsion even though they’d all but confessed to the attempted murder of another student, and Narcissa wasn’t talking if Lucius wasn’t talking. Harry didn’t particularly care because an expulsion would have been an easy way out for Mulciber and Snape, for whom he harbored elaborate dreams of revenge. He still owed Sirius for the necklace that would now allow him to waltz out to Hogsmeade with no one to stop him or recognize him.

What he didn’t like was the fact that he had to refrain from healing himself, lest he arouse the suspicions of his housemates. Narcissa had done a fair job of closing the two gaping slash wounds on the side of his neck, but Lucius wasn’t handing over any blood replenishing potions to help Harry out.

Consequently, he had two livid red scars running from his left hear to his left collarbone, one from the slip of his hand being knocked by Mulciber’s spell, and the other from the cutting curse Mulciber had used on him. The Slytherins had looked at him like he was rugged and dangerous. Several times in the morning, before Harry made his way up to breakfast in the Great Hall, he’d seen Rosier eye the side of his face speculatively, before rushing out and conferring with a seventh year Travers and Dolohov in hushed tones in the common room. The lower years were even worse, looking up at Harry like he was dangerous, and scurrying out of the way when he walked past.

He’d nodded in acknowledgement at Narcissa, who’d given him a frigid stare over her porridge breakfast that it made him wonder how anyone that young and still so good at healing spells could be so cold. When he’d first seen her in the Curse-breaking class, he’d thought that she looked remarkably like Draco as Harry remembered him from the Department of Mysteries: patient, timeless, driven, with a hint of old-world imperialist superiority. Now though, he wasn’t sure what to think. She deferred to Lucius’ judgment over the reporting of the attack, but she’d healed him as best as she could.

It was strange and it reminded Harry of that fateful day in May, of a frightened, desperate woman hinging the survival of her son on the word of a man who should have been dead, and proceeded to help him save the world instead from Voldemort. Perhaps there was something he could work there.

Now though, three days later, he sat in the library with Caradoc and Sirius, to work on their Curse-breaking essay. Sirius was smart enough for the three of them and knew literally everything there had to be known about breaking both curses. Harry’s only input had been to tell his two study partners that he’d inadvertently set off the chain lightning protection curse on the necklace.

“And you’re still alive?” Caradoc exclaimed incredulously.

He shrugged. “And I’m still alive. It was hardly more than a jolt. You know these things were created by Croaker anyway. He’s not gonna give us anything that’s going to kill any of us that easily, the sadistic bastard.”

Caradoc stared at him like he’d grown another head but changed tack to his original question. “So what happened to your face?’

“Nothing,” Harry scowled, annoyed at the interrogation. “Disagreement in the Slytherin common room.”

“You people slice each other up all the time when you have disagreements?” James asked as he sauntered into the library, with Remus and Peter in tow, to join the three of them at their table.

Peter stared at the red marks on the side of Harry’s face, which was beginning to itch from all the scrutiny. “Looks a bit like Moony’s—er I mean—“

“You mean nothing,” Sirius interrupted, voice sharp and meaningful as he glared at Peter before turning a trepidatious glance at Remus.

Remus looked tired and wan and pale, and Harry was sure it had much to do with the fact that the full moon was coming up in two days. Damn, he hadn’t gotten around to asking Slughorn for a room to brew the Wolfsbane just yet. Remus was going to have to just power through another full moon as a mindless slavering beast while Harry got his head and priorities sorted. He’d spent the last three days brooding over the attack by Snape.

“Who’d you fight?” James asked again, all casual cool smoothing over the silent argument brewing between his two Marauder friends, even as Remus laid out his books on the table and then cradled his head in his arms over them to take a nap.

Harry shrugged. “Mulciber and Snape had some comments about my blood status.”

“I hope you didn’t get back at them with the secret weapon we discussed,” Sirius said, cocking a brow at Harry who wanted to melt at the attention suddenly. "It isn' ready for pranking."

“What secret weapon?” James asked, then noticed the necklace they were studying in the middle of the table. “You mean this cheap little thing—“

He moved to take the cursed necklace, but Harry, panicked over his father getting himself cursed, snatched it away quickly.

“No!” Caradoc and Sirius yelled at the same time. Madam Pince hissed in their direction and the two boys subsided.

“Shit, Prongs, you don’t just take shit like that without precautions,” Sirius gasped, blood thundering in his temples. “This is from our Curse-breaking class, and if you know what’s conducive to a good long life with Evans, you don’t pick off shit like this when it’s clearly radiating Dark magic.”

James hummed thoughtfully, but he wasn’t listening to Sirius. He was looking at Harry, who wasn’t in the least bit affected by the aging curse, even as he clutched the necklace with his bare hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, Harry has a pretty inappropriate crush on both Sirius and Narcissa, and he's got it bad for Rosmerta too. It's a bit creepy, but he's not acting on anything, it likely has more to do with the fact that he's starved for human contact considering he'd shut himself up in the DoM with no one but Croaker, who's gone half-made trying to figure out the conundrum of how Harry was connected to the plague, and then Draco, who WAS actually mad from grief and depression, for company for 9 years. That's gotta unhinge a few screws loose, not to mention give rise to a healthy libido after years of apathy and frustration.
> 
> Also for clarity: Lucius is seventh year, and the Head Boy. Andromeda is the other seventh year prefect. Narcissa is a fifth year prefect. All of the Blacks except Sirius are prefects (I guess Regulus wouldn't be one yet, he's fourth year here.) Harry's sixth year roommates are Snape, Mulciber, Macnair, Avery and Rosier. The other Death Eaters at the table during the start of year feast are in other years: Rabastan in fourth year, with Regulus. Rowle in fifth year with Narcissa. There'd be others that pop up here and there. The only Death Eaters who wouldn't be in Slytherin at this time would be Nott (who came from Voldemort's time and is hella old even in 1977) Bellatrix and Rodolphus, who are already out of school, and Karkaroff, who didn't go to Hogwarts.
> 
> Voldemort, during this time, isn't outwardly terrorizing the populace yet, as he's still amassing a large following of the most powerful wizards and witches he could collect, and his recruitment is still within the bounds of the laws of the Ministry of Magic. However, his followers are already known as Death Eaters, and are rumored to be behind much of the Muggle-baiting, and the disappearance of muggleborn wizards, that's been happening in the 70s.


	7. Chapter 7

Harry was panicking.

It was not the same sort of panic that resulted in an attack where he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, and couldn’t control the way his overpowered magic tended to burst out from his core like a literal chest monster. Like in _Aliens_. No, this was that low level sort of panic that curdled his stomach until he felt like vomiting, the sort of panic that made his temples throb with a repeat of the scene he’d just left burning in an inexorable flash-before-your-eyes silent montage.

He’d outed himself in front of the Marauders. Sirius and Caradoc had studied the necklace extensively. Harry hadn’t contributed at all, but that was because he was bored with the two swotting about in deep discussion about how the two curses were layered.They both _knew_ the superannuation curse was still active, and Harry was certain the curse had regenerated its strength since he’d used it on his Hogsmeade jaunt, he would have felt it if his magic had completely broken it, that was just how sensitive to magic he’d gotten, but it just… hadn’t… when he’d grabbed it to keep his father from getting cursed.

He knew this wasn’t truly the sort of thing he should have a panic about, especially when _he_ was a capable adult wizard who could probably finesse a good _Obliviate_ on his father and his father’s friends. It’s just that he didn’t want to do it, not to James Potter, and especially not to Sirius Black. There was already so precious little that they knew about each other, especially not in this timeline, and Harry was desperately grabbing at straws at what he could get out of the meager amount of time he was able to spend with James, Sirius and Remus. He never wanted them to forget that he existed, and what he had done, because there was almost nothing left that he had of them from his own timeline.

The worst part of it was that Harry himself had been so shocked at not being subjected to the curse that he’d automatically fled the scene like an absolute ninny, just because James, Sirius and Caradoc had all stared at him with a mixture of trepidation (Caradoc), horror (Sirius, likely at the thought that Harry had broken the curse before he managed to) and bald curiosity (James). He might have easily passed it off as a delay in the onset of the curse--after all, neither Caradoc nor Sirius had any idea how the curse worked when it did; they just knew theory. Instead, like an utter tit, Harry had acted on his fight or flight instinct first and fled the scene, necklace still in hand.

His feet had automatically taken him to the seventh floor to the Room of Requirement. The door hadn’t appeared yet, and Harry hoped when it did, the Room of Hidden Things wouldn’t show up. The last thing he needed while he was having a private freak out was a Horcrux attempting to gain control of him.

He wrestled with himself for a moment and grasped the knob when the door appeared and let himself in.

The Room had apparently taken his wild, panicked thoughts into account and showed him instead how he remembered the Room after the Battle of Hogwarts. It was a scorched empty husk, the floor covered by a fine layer of dust and soot. Harry shut the door behind himself and sank to the floor.

Fuck. Fuck.

Now that he’d started to panic, it was hard to deescalate it. Even telling himself that he could just as easily explain away the necklace not working with a few calculated lies and a sincere offer to teach Sirius the theory behind the weaving of the primary and main deterrent curses together, which Sirius and Caradoc had been discussing before James joined them. There was nothing to panic about.

_“Calm the fuck down.”_

Harry’s breath hitched as his head shot up from where he’d cradled it in his arms. That _definitely_ was not his own voice, and the magic of the Room didn’t allow any of the ghosts inside. There was no one there.

Although, he reasoned with himself, that didn’t mean he actually _was_ alone. He had to remind himself that this was 1977 and James Potter had the Invisibility Cloak. The voice sounded nothing like teenage James though, who sounded exactly like Harry, down to the timber of their voices. This voice sounded reedier, thinner, just short of nasal, with a posh drawl that reminded Harry of the stuffy Pureblood Slytherins in his dorm. Sirius sounded a bit like this too, but the voice was a tad bit deeper than a teenage boy’s.

Harry blinked, panic attack utterly forgotten.

“Malfoy?”

“ _It’s not the end of the world,_ ” Malfoy’s nasally voice, rough with emotion, echoed in the empty room.

Harry’s eyes goggled. Was he going crazy? Was the Time Turner’s magic turning wonky and it was now going to return him to his hellish dystopian future? He stared down at his hands as if it held the answer, as if he was going to de-materialize out of 1977 Hogwarts and land back into the Department of Mysteries, but his hands, though glowing from the wildness of his magic in the middle of his panic, remained solid, corporeal. The cursed necklace was still clutched in his left hand, the sharp little links plated in silver digging into his palm. It was just as solid as he felt himself. Then how…?

“Draco?” he called out again, louder than the tentative croak that left his dry throat earlier. “Are you here?”

Had he accidentally pulled Malfoy into the past with him? Surely not? Hadn’t he arrived in 1977 by train? No, that couldn’t be right. He’d used the Time Turner, so of course he would have arrived using that, although the mechanics of the magic seemed a bit fuzzy to him. His memory of using the Time Turner to rescue Sirius and Buckbeak in third year was a bit fuzzy, it had been so long ago, but he was certain that he and Hermione had appeared in the same exact location where they’d stood after activating the Time Turner. It seemed a bit of a stretch to have himself land in an entirely different place when activating the Time Turner. And yet here he was in Hogwarts. Maybe it was just his magic being wonky.

Was that why he could hear Malfoy?

“Hello?” he called out again, less tentative now. “Draco?”

“ _Fucking calm down… deep breaths!”_ Malfoy hissed, sounding angry.

Harry thought he was really starting to lose the plot. The room was completely empty, and apart from the fine film of soot that covered everything, there was nothing to look at, nothing to see.

Unbidden, the memory of a massive fire, of wickedly fierce magical creatures made entirely of the wild destructive energy of uncontrolled blue flame flashed through him, making him shiver with remembered terror. The Room of Requirement… _Fiendfyre_. This was where Crabbe had died in the Battle, where Harry, desperate not to let his fellow classmates die in the chaos of the Fiendfyre, whether or not they were on his side, had swung his broom around and plucked Malfoy out of the inferno, while Ron and Hermione tried to help Goyle.

Fuck, he must be imagining things. He really must be going crazy from all the brooding he'd done over Snape.

He needed a breath. Preferably not in this room, with all the memories of the war like dust prickling around his straining eyes. He wasn’t going to cry, not after nineteen years.

He left the room. Malfoy wasn’t here. Harry was just imagining him. The future, as Harry knew it, no longer existed. He was sure of it.

Because if it did, it meant he was an utter failure, and he couldn’t be one while he was still alive and could do something to prevent the wizarding apocalypse that he had come from.

* * *

It was happening again.

It was happening again and he didn’t know if he could stand for it a third time, not after Astoria. Not after Scorpius.

He wasn’t quite certain how he’d managed to get himself from the Department of Mysteries after Potter had disappeared. That had been a month ago. Draco had, since then, shut himself out in Astoria’s solar, sitting in her favorite chair. He’d read all her books, piled neatly on the ornate end table next to her chair. Steve Patterson was a decent writer, the stories were suspenseful enough, even if Draco hadn’t understood a good chunk of the Muggle goings on in the book. What in the world was a gun? Why were their Aurors called “Inspectors” when they didn’t do any inspecting?

When he wasn’t puzzling through Astoria’s books, he’d drank himself into a stupor. The elves brought him Firewhiskey without him having to demand it, and Draco guzzled through it by the bottle every few nights until he’d made himself so sick, he thought his head would finally burst from the heat and alcohol poisoning, but instead, he’d dry heaved on the floor, unable to bring up anything but bile and the alcohol he’d imbibed, because he hadn’t the appetite for any food.

He could see how gaunt and disheveled he looked now in the gold-gilded mirror hung on one wall. He was still in yesterday’s robes, which were wrinkled and spotted with his sick, even though he’d drunkenly tried to vanish it the previous night. His face was puffy from his pissup, his eyes held up by two bruised half-moons. He looked half-dead. He felt mostly dead.

He wished he could die from the pounding in his head just that moment, but then he’d seen the letter carelessly strewn on the mantle. It was in his father’s precise but flowing script.

Lucius Malfoy had been nothing but unfailingly polite and conciliatory to his son after they’d returned to the Manor after the final battle, years and years ago. He knew Draco blamed him for the horrible state of the Malfoy name, then severely tattered from Lucius’ and Draco’s involvement in the losing side of the war. Draco had nearly never managed to land a marriage match. It was only because he’d known Astoria well back in Hogwarts that the lord and lady Greengrass even permitted him to court her.

When he and Astoria had gotten married and Draco started enforcing the distance between his parents and his new family, Lucius had graciously backed off. Oh he knew his father was deeply unhappy—disappointed, which at one point in his life would have already felt like a death sentence—over Draco’s increased reticence, but Lucius and Narcissa had allowed their son to take whatever decisions he deemed necessary for his family. He was the Lord Malfoy now, after all. Lucius had quietly given him the family signet ring the first night they’d been back in the Manor. At the time, Draco had felt like his father had saddled him with yet another uphill battle to drag the Malfoy name out of the mud so he could give his family a better future with the startling new world they found themselves in after the war.

He wanted to take the ring off his finger now and hurl it into the fireplace and cast the strongest _Incendio_ that he dared to melt the metal into slag, but he refrained from doing so. He still loved his father, perhaps now more than before at having allowed Draco the past nineteen years to live his life however he pleased, without him breathing down his neck as he’d done before in Draco’s youth.

Lucius never attempted to initiate conversation with his son unless Draco sought him out first these days. The no-man’s land that was the Manor’s grand dining room had never been crossed by either of Draco’s parents, out of the respect they’d vowed to him they’d take to allow him his freedom.

The only time Lucius and Narcissa had ever contacted him was when they’d asked, diffidently, it almost seemed like, if Draco would allow supervised visits with their grandson. That had been thirteen years ago. They hadn’t crossed the divide of the manor on their own even when either Astoria or Scorpius died, preferring to let Draco march himself stiffly into his father’s study to request their presence at his wife’s and later his son’s funerals.

Lucius kept his distance and ensured his wife followed it, out of a gentleman’s accord with his own son. With Astoria and Scorpius gone though, it was only a matter of time. Draco had been waiting for the shoe to drop for some years now, but his parents had kept quiet, leading their own lives away from him, with only the occasional shared dinner once a week.

On occasion, the two older Malfoy’s had not been able to hold back on insinuating they desire for Draco to remarry, to have another child, to secure the Malfoy family’s future. Most days, Draco could take it in stride. Today was not one of those days.

And really, that was it, probably. The letter now probably meant some inane request, something stupid, probably to ask him if he would like to court so-and-so Pureblood’s daughter, some acquaintance of his father either from his days in the favor of the Ministry before the war, or now through the hollow charities he sponsored.

He wished his parents would shut the fuck up.

They didn’t understand, neither of them. He loved Astoria like his life depended on it, because Astoria had helped him rebuild his life, from the dust and ashes of defeat in the war. She’d reintroduced him to polite society, defended him to the criticism leveled by her own parents, and later, to the criticism by the Wizarding world in general. Probably apart from Potter defending him in his trial, no one had ever championed his cause so very thoroughly and successfully than Astoria had. And of course, she’d given him Scorpius.

Nothing and no one, he was certain, would ever be enough to replace her. And so he wouldn’t marry.

He was half a mind not to read the note any longer. It would just make him irrationally angry at his father and make the dinner that week unnecessarily strained. He wasn’t sure what it was though, perhaps a tingle in his spine that spelled a premonition, never mind that neither the Malfoys nor the Blacks have ever had a prescient bone in their bodies in many generations. Whatever it was, he forced his swimming vision to still and focus long enough to decipher his father’s flowing hand:

_Draco,_

_I would not write to you if the situation were not so dire. I know that you are hurting from the loss of your wife and son, but I’m asking you… I’m pleading with you, my son, to please come see your mother. She has taken ill—_

He didn’t finish reading the letter and the parchment dropped out of his nerveless hands as he felt a wave of cold, unfeeling emptiness sweep through him, like a heavy, freezing _Aguamenti_ in the middle of winter.

He could feel his breath come up in soft quick puffs as his chest struggled and failed to retain the air that he tried to breathe into his lungs. It felt like winter of 2006 again, with Astoria lying in her sickbed, faint from the unstable fluctuations of her magic.

They hadn’t known then that was the sign of a power influx to her core when the plague vacuumed magic out of another magical being who was turning alarmingly into a Squib. Potter, as Unspeakable J, had shared him Croaker’s theories on the way that the plague had worked, how it was controlled by some law called Psychics, how magic was nothing but energy and that energy wasn’t created or deleted out of existence; that it was always there in equal amounts regardless of what changed it. He’d told him that the Consumption, so named because it consumed the magic of a wizard first, rendering that wizard utterly non-magical. If the wizard was healthy, he could continue on with his life as a Muggle, though most wizards afflicted by that type of the Consumption preferred to end their lives than live without their magic. Others who were injured, or infirm, who relied on their magic to stabilize their health or keep them alive, simply died from the shock of the loss.

Once the magic was completely leeched dry, it would then pour into the magical core of another wizard. Humans were only so resilient at the influx of another being’s magic, and the influx of new magic made the receiving wizard’s core unstable as the new magic attacked the existing magic, like a cancer attacking healthy cells. In short order, the wizard who received the influx of new magic would find their power erratic, unstable, and finally, unusable as they started to leak power from their core. Finally, once all of the magic poured in and the core couldn’t contain it, the wizard’s core burst, resulting in a very violent, often very bloody end.

Astoria had experienced the leeching, consumptive part of the plague. It hadn’t been a lie that she had a blood curse. Daphne Greengrass had been the one to confess that to Draco when Astoria had first taken ill. Lady Greengrass was the one whose line carried the curse and had been too ashamed to show her face at Malfoy Manor, as if the incidence of her carrying a blood-borne curse that she had been borne with, that she carried through not fault of her own, had intentionally, maliciously passed it on to her daughter.

Astoria’s magical core, robust in health, had kept the worst of the symptoms of the blood curse, which manifested as a wasting sickness, from materializing. But when the Consumption took her, her magic had leached out, slowly at first, and then at an alarming rate, until her core was unable to sustain her life.

Scorpius had been through something similar. Never having been a healthy child, he’d been prone to colic and fevers that climbed to dangerous temperatures, and when the Consumption took root in him, he’d convulsed from one of his fevers and died in Draco’s arms.

Draco didn’t know if he considered himself fortunate that it had been his experience.

He’d read from the papers that Potter’s first child had died from the magic influx sickness, and the boy had blown himself out completely in front of Potter and Potter’s youngest child. No wonder the girl Weasley had gone off the deep end after that first death in their family. Draco shuddered to think how he would have coped if he’d witnessed his wife or child blow apart and shower him in spitting sparks and the remnants of their spleen. Again, not a wonder that Potter had just… wanted to die himself.

Even if he hadn’t confessed that he’d been the final landing point of all the magic that had been sucked out or burst out of all the dead wizards and witches of the past decade, Draco was sure he himself would have wanted to die if he’d had to see anyone blow up in front of him, never mind his own wife or child. The wasting away without magic had been terrifying enough.

And now it was happening again.

He didn’t know if the pounding in his temples were the result of that cold wash of memory or if he just wasn’t breathing at all at the sheer _panic_ he felt that it was all happening all over again.

How could Potter fail so spectacularly? His using the Time Turner to die properly in 1998 was meant to stop this Consumption plague. And he was the sodding Boy Who Lived. If anyone could resolve the horror that was gripping the wizarding world now, it had to be Potter.

Instead, Potter was gone. And the deaths and sickness hadn’t stopped.

Oh god, what if his mother experienced the magic influx instead of the leeching?

“Stop, Draco,” he told himself in a gasping whisper. “Fucking breathe, goddamn you!”

But he couldn’t breathe as he tore through the corridors of the manor, crossing the no-man’s land of their dining room, ignoring the flash of memory of Charity Burbage’s horrible corpse as the Dark Lord’s snake opened its gaping maws…

He was still gasping for breath erratically as he found his parents’ bedroom and burst in. Lucius sat in a chair looking old and tired and frail and nothing like the formidable politician that Draco had always known him, even in the days succeeding the end of the war. He’d fallen asleep holding his mother’s thin pale hand.

Narcissa appeared to be in the grips of some troubled dream as her eyes rolled beneath her pale eyelids, making the blue veins beneath the thin skin pulse every few seconds. Draco stared and stared as his eyes filled with tears. Her lips were pale and bloodless.

How could he let himself shut them out for years and years without so much as a by your leave? How could he let his bitterness and terror at the end of the war color his every interaction with them? They were his parents and they meant only the best of what they could give him, even if that best was flawed and bigoted and _wrong_. Weren’t they exactly like he had been, children growing up in a time of war, and indoctrinated in the same foul rhetoric they had taught him?

Was he never going to be able to bridge the yawning void that he’d determinedly created between them? What if his mother _died_?

A shuddering sob tore through him as he collapsed to his knees at the end of the bed. He tried to catch his breath but he couldn’t, and he allowed himself another gasping sob, before the tears in his eyes broke through the dam of his welled emotions and flooded down his gaunt cheeks, and he angrily wiped them with a fisted hand.

No, he didn’t deserve this! He’d done his penance for his role in the war in almost two years of house arrest; why was the world continuing to punish him, by taking away everyone he loved? His wife and son were gone, why did his mother have to be next?

His tears had no answer and a hiccuping sob escaped his quivering lips again. “Stop it!” he willed himself. It would not do to show his tears to his slumbering father, already tired from watching over his mother. Lucius’ eyelids looked raw too, as if he’d been crying himself before he’d fallen asleep.

“Stop it this instant, it wouldn’t do to cry.” But the sobs wouldn’t stop and his breath slid out of his lungs every time he tried to measure it out slowly. “Calm the fuck down!”

Lucius did not wake, perhaps too weary with weight he carried, of the failure that was his life, his failure that bringing about the future he wanted for his son, his impotence at keeping his wife from falling ill and prey to the Consumptive plague, Draco didn’t know.

“It’s not the end of the world,” he tried to tell himself in a soft whisper, a sordid attempt at regaining his iron control.

He lurched to his feet and left the sickroom, but he didn’t get far before he collapsed into erratic gasps and sobs and sank to the floor in the carpeted hallway, spelled impeccably clean by the house elves, and now it would be soiled by Draco’s dirty robes, by his snot-covered hands the back of which he used to wipe his running nose.

“Fucking calm down! Deep breaths!” he hissed at himself angrily.

“ _Draco? Are you here?_ ”

The sound of that voice, so distant yet so familiar snapped him out of his grief-induced hysteria. What in the world…?

He snapped his head up. The hallway was empty and silent but he didn’t discount the feel of perhaps it was dark memory that stained his perception… but no, he felt nothing but his family magic pervading the hallway, still bright in the late afternoon sun. He was sure he’d heard someone her with him, like a whisper of memory, but more immediate.

“ _Hello? Draco?_ ”

“Potter?” he breathed. Was he alive? Had he made it back to the Battle and stopped whatever it was Voldemort had unleashed on wizardkind with his death?

There was no reply, only the whisper of the curtains at the end of the hall, dancing in the summer breeze. Perhaps not. Draco did not want to dwell on false hopes he might conjure himself to help him cope with depression over the losses he’d sustained in his life. Potter was as good as gone. Nothing had changed.

Before long, magic on Britain would come to an end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The reveal is a long way off since the plot is just getting warmed up, but three guesses as to how Harry and Draco are connected.


	8. Chapter 8

“Patter.”

Harry looked up from his parchment. He’d been sitting outside the Room of Requirement for quite some time now since classes ended. He hadn’t been back inside since the Fiendfyre room appeared to him with the ghost of Malfoy’s voice.That was a week ago. He couldn’t figure out how the room learned to show the aftermath of _Fiendfyre,_ or to conjure the sound of Draco’s voice when the fire hadn’t happened until 1998, and Draco Malfoy obviously still didn’t exist as of the moment—his parents didn’t appear to even be dating at this point, though Harry wouldn’t put it past the Blacks and Malfoys to have arranged their union. It was just the sort of rubbish archaic views the old-fashioned snobs of a Pureblood families both lines were.

He needed time to himself, and the Slytherin common room was not a safe space, not if Mulciber and Snape were going to target him again. Harry hadn’t retaliated yet as he watched the social dynamics of Slytherin house and how his house mates were going to treat the attempted murder of one of their own.

Lucius seemed to have decided to sweep it under the rug, his friendship with Snape seeming to take precedence over House loyalty and protecting one of his own. Narcissa shot narrow-eyed glares whenever Harry was in the same room as either boy, as if the fact that he’d allowed himself to be attacked was somehow his fault. Rosier and Avery suspected something was afoot, especially as Harry had taken to avoiding the Slytherin dorms until he absolutely had to turn in to clean himself and to sleep, and even then, he spelled his bed curtains with the same sort of magic-repelling charms he had on his gloves. It was meant to dispel any attempt at opening the curtains. When one night, Macnair had the bright idea to try hexing him in his sleep, he’d used his wand to carve a linking rune to to the bed frame and layered a chain lightning curse on top of his magic-repelling charm. It was a bit of an overkill, but if murder was going to be a weekly occurrence in the Slytherin dorms, just because these idiots believed him muggleborn, he felt perfectly vindicated if some would-be attacker fried their bollocks into sterility trying to get into his bed.

He’d never found out what Macnair had planned to hex him with either; being paranoid and hyped to his gills with his overactive magic, Harry woke at the slightest sound or motion within 3 feet of his person, and after Mulciber and Snape, he had a hex-first-ask-questions-later policy when it came to spending time within the dorms lest his magic attack any of the boys stupid enough to try him. At least if he was the one directing the hex, it meant they’d live to see another day. Maybe they’d be permanently addled some if he wasn’t feeling very generous, but at least they’d be alive. Unconscious, his magic might act on its own and lash out at someone to potentially disastrous consequences. He didn’t want to make enemies of the Slytherin boys any more than they already despised him, and he certainly had no intention of killing them.

If he was disturbed at the way he’d responded with secrecy and viciousness at the attacks, he wasn’t willing to question himself. Sure, the boys in his dorm were still boys and Harry was an adult in a boy’s body, but the attacks hadn’t been harmless. Sure he couldn’t die and all, didn’t mean he had to put up with annoying pests trying to find various ways they could dismember him in his sleep.

All this meant he was perpetually tired from lack of sleep, and grumpy with his paranoia, but he had a quest here to finish and he wasn’t going to let a bit of violent pranking from teenagers deter him from his plans. If only he could actually remember the primary reason he was here in the first place.

And therein lay the crux of the problem he’d been puzzling over since he’d sought out the Room of Requirement. As he spent more time in 1977, not even a lot, but just as the past week went by, he felt like he was losing grasp of what had happened that had brought him here in the first place. He couldn’t remember how he’d gotten to Hogwarts in 1977. He had a vague notion of time travel, but only because if he stuck his hand in his robe pocket, his fingers would catch on the Time Turner he guarded jealously on his person at all times. But then he had absolutely no memory of ever using it. He remembered spending long years first with Croaker, then with Malfoy, attempting to fix the Time Turner, but he didn’t remember having any success with it, much less using it.

It wasn’t the sort of discombobulated feeling one got when Obliviated. He rather thought he would know if he’d been Obliviated, but considering he had all his memories of what had happened to him since arriving in 1977 intact, and of his past (or future as it were) life was well. He just didn’t remember how he’d gotten here, or what had led up to him even getting here.

He’d decided to write out what it was he could remember, and a bit of what he could do to try to retrieve the missing memories. Dumbledore had a Pensieve in his office, but the old Headmaster was not in the school more often than he was. Harry supposed he could just break in, but there were just some things even _he_ held sacrosanct, and the inviolability of the Headmaster’s office was one of those things.

He’d been so lost in thought over the missing memories, and so obsessed with writing out the details of what he _could_ remember of the last few days he’d spent from his timeline that he completely missed when someone called his name out and started to approach him.

He’d spent so much time in the past week observing the Marauders though that by now, he recognized the click of heels and confident stride as Sirius. James walked with a bit of a swagger, probably as convinced of his popularity and likability as the rest of Hogwarts save the Slytherins were. Remus walked with a light, stealthy step, as if he wanted to melt into the background instead of drawing attention to himself. Harry didn’t bother to remember what Pettigrew’s stride was like.

“What?” he asked absently, chewing on his quill and still pondering the memories he had, or the lack thereof, of his last days in 2017 Department of Mysteries.

Sirius gave an insouciant shrug, as if it was perfectly normal for him to waltz into an out of the way corridor on the seventh floor, and not that he’d specifically sought Harry out. “Caradoc’s turned our essay in to Croaker. We’ve added the notes on the rune sequence you used to break the curse.”

Harry nodded, privately gratified that Sirius and Caradoc had bought the lie he’d fed them that he’d just forgotten that he was playing on rune sequences and had inadvertently broken the curse when he’d gone to return the necklace to them the next time they worked together. That had been a bit of a mistake, because once the two boys realized that he’d already resolved their project, they stopped using their gloves to handle it. Harry was only lucky they were sitting in a section of the library half-hidden by shelves, and that Caradoc and Sirius were too engrossed in looking over the bogus rune sequence Harry had noted down to notice the deepening wrinkles between their eyebrows and the corners of their lips. Harry had been quick to catch it and just as quick to cast a discreet counter curse with a wave of his hand, passed off as a casual gesture in his explanation. He’d then quickly offered to re-cast the curse so they could test out the rune sequence on their own. Neither boy had been surprised that he, a Slytherin, knew how to cast such a complex and obviously insidious curse. Then he’d had to make a huge show of wand-waving and uttering obscure Latin to mimic a flash of red glow on the necklace while avoiding actually casting the curse. They’d then been able to resume their study, and Harry could quietly feel relieved at the fact that he had not been found out.

“Mm,” he said, hoping that was all Sirius had to say on the subject.

Sirius squatted down in front of him. “I know you didn’t break it,” he stated quietly.

Okay, maybe not.

Harry told himself silently to panic later.

“What did you think I did then, if not break it? That thing didn’t affect me, or either of you after all,” he replied.

Sirius leveled him with a flat stare. “You seem to be of the persuasion that I don’t know runic sequences any better than you, and you may be right about that. Croaker said the curse-breaking sequence was masterful.”

Harry resisted preening. He’d learned all his curse-breaking from working with Croaker for four years after all.

“Well, that’s what happened, and if you don’t believe me, then I can’t really help you.”

“No,” Sirius agreed. “But you also seem to believe that I don’t know how to cast a superannuation curse myself.”

It was a logical assumption, Harry wanted to say. Age curses were just on the border of being categorized Dark Arts because they weren’t as immediately debilitating as some curses that were truly intended to hurt. They had practical uses, as Croaker’s lecture yielded, and they were slow-acting enough that a counter-curse could be cast. That wasn’t the point here though.

“I know you didn’t re-cast the curse, because I know exactly how to cast it myself,” Sirius said, the corner of his beautifully plush lips lifting minutely in a secretive smile. Harry had no idea Sirius had so many Slytherin tendencies that he’d obviously grown out of in adulthood. “And I don’t think you realize that I also _know_ when someone’s trying to cast a counter curse on me. That necklace was cursed when you gave it back to us to review, and it was cursed when you snatched it away from James.”

Harry scowled and wished for a fleeting moment that his godfather wasn’t so goddamn smart. “What do you want then?”

“You haven’t paid up on that deal we made yet,” Sirius said, and Harry felt like he was going to get whiplash from the quick about-face of the conversation.

“I don’t need some dumb necklace to curse Snape.”

Sirius nodded amiably. “I know that. What I want to know is why _you_ weren’t affected by the curse.”

Harry shook his head mutely for a minute, panic rising in his throat. He couldn’t tell Sirius. It would just draw him in to all of the hundred different shit that Harry had to deal with since coming to this time and place, and he didn’t want to do that to his godfather. Sirius was too young in this timeline; Harry _owed_ it to him not to get him embroiled in quests against Voldemort all over again. Not this time. He’d protect him, and James, and Remus, and his mother, for as long as he could. And this time, no one was stopping him doing that, since _he_ was the adult in this situation.

He opened his mouth for a moment, prepared to lie, and then looked at the expectant glitter in Sirius’ dove grey eyes. It wasn’t the glitter of mischief, as he’d seen so much in the boy since he’d arrived here. It was the look of someone daring him to lie to his face. It was the look Harry knew he’d always worn when he’d been a teenager and equally frustrated when he’d been kept out of the loop in everything that concerned him—from the reason why he had to return to his relatives over the summer, to the reason why no one was telling him anything of Voldemort’s activities after the TriWizard Tournament.

He closed his mouth.

When he opened it again, he found himself telling the truth, as much of it as he dared. “My magic overwhelmed it.”

Sirius seemed to ponder this answer for a moment before inclining his head. “All right. Say I believe you, that it’s possible for some kid to just overwhelm a magical artifact’s power, one created by the foremost expert in Curses and curse-breaking, to subdue its effects. Have you thought of how far-fetched that sounds?”

“It is,” Harry agreed. “It’s the truth though.” He hunched his shoulders diffidently, struggling to phrase his next statement in a way it would be acceptable to Sirius. “I… I have an affliction. It has to do with my magical core being unstable and overpowering Dark magic when I come into contact with it.”

That was as close to the truth as he dared. It wasn’t a lie, just not the full truth. And anyway, the fact that he was the dumping ground of excess magic sucked out by the Consumption, making him unstable, wasn’t exactly a false statement. He just wasn’t quite afflicted with it. He was the _cause_ of it. And anyway, he didn’t know why the curse didn’t work on him. He’d been fully expecting it to, even momentarily, like it had when he'd used it to get to Hogsmeade.

“Is that why you needed the magic-repelling gloves?” Sirius asked after a moment.

“Yeah, that about sums it.”

“All right,” Sirius said, getting up, before staring back down at him. “Why are you sitting all the way out here?”

Harry stared up at his face haloed by the brightening light of the torches the hung in the ceiling. With his bottom lip caught between his teeth, a youthful habit of curiosity, he was so painfully beautiful.

He smiled and pushed himself up to his feet, pocketing his parchment and quill, and realizing there was in fact something he could teach his godfather that he may not have known during his time in Hogwarts.

“If you walk past the wall next to the portrait three times and think about a place you wanted to visit, I’ll show you.”

Sirius frowned and stared at him for a long moment. Harry thought he wasn’t going to take the word of a Slytherin, especially since the instruction seemed so nonsensical, but then he evidently decided it sounded harmless enough, and followed Harry’s instruction.

The door materialized after Sirius’ last turn, and he turned to grin delightedly at Harry. “I’ve never seen this door here before, and believe me, my mates and I know Hogwarts inside out.”

Harry smiled back at him bemusedly as Sirius opened the door and the two of them shuffled in. Then he looked up, and sorely regretted even bringing Sirius here.

The room they’d entered was the Room of Hidden Things, and if Harry took the open path to the right and turned, he’d be face to face with Ravenclaw’s diadem.

Shit.

There wasn’t anything he could do. Sirius was also moving past the first pile of broken chairs, old books piled on dusty, vandalized desks. Old model brooms and cauldrons piled on top of each other, some with burned out bottoms, lined one side of the route he’d decided to take. Fuck it was the route leading them directly to where Harry had found the diadem.

“What is this place?” Sirius asked as he looked back at where Harry trailed after him, ready to spring to action if the diadem tried to attack his godfather.

“It has a few names. The house elves call it the Come and Go Room. What you’re seeing now, this is the Room of Hidden Things.” He shrugged one shoulder as Sirius trailed a wondering finger on one of the vintage model brooms that still looked serviceable. “I call it the Room of Requirement. When you walk past the portrait, the room gives you exactly what it is you require of it, bar a few things in accordance with the laws of magic.”

Sirius nodded absently. “Like food; I know the theory. How did you find it?”

“My friends and I came here before,” Harry hedged, and Sirius laughed in his face.

“Friends? You’ve been here a week, Patter, and I’ve watched you every day of the week you’ve been here. You don’t have friends.”

Harry was torn between affront at the insinuation that he was the one friendless boy in the entire year (actually a fair assessment), and preening at Sirius’ admission that he’d been watching Harry.

“I—I mean I’ve been here before, to Hogwarts,” he stammered when the boy’s mirthful eyes turned back at him. Looking at Sirius was an experience akin to seeing a Veela turning on their Allure at full blast. “I mean before the school year started.”

“Explains how you know your way around school so well, I suppose,” Sirius said, accepting the lie for the truth. “Are your parents on the Board of Governors? Is that how you’ve been here during the summer?”

Harry bit his tongue when he’d been about to say he’d been at Hogwarts for six years, same as everyone else. “N-No. My parents died when I was very young.”

“Oh.” Silence for a moment, then another sly smile. “Dumbledore sure knows how to pick ‘em then.”

Harry frowned, wondering what that statement meant, if it meant that as early as their sixth year, the Marauders had been recruited into the Order of the Phoenix. Because if so, the old headmaster had much to answer for, for how he’d treated Harry back when Harry had wanted to join the Order. And then that was quickly replaced with a resentment at the realization that Sirius could be insinuating that Dumbledore targeted him, Harry, because he was an orphan. It wasn’t far from the truth either. He’d settled all of his complicated feelings over how he’d been manipulated for his role in the war, manipulated from the time of his parents’ demise. It still wasn’t a good feeling having the truth thrown into his face so casually by someone who ought not to know what he was talking about.

Sirius turned another corner and Harry held his breath. The diadem was on the shelf, placed on a bust exactly as he remembered it nineteen years ago. At least he wasn’t still a Horcrux now, so he couldn’t feel the way the Horcrux in the diadem call out to him the same way it had half a lifetime ago. Even so, his magic swelled in his core at the brush of insidiously Dark magic, and he could see the tendrils of it wafting around the crown.

He daren’t call attention to it for fear that Sirius might try to touch it, but the diadem’s protection magic evidently meant that it made itself as unobtrusive and unnoticeable as possible to someone not even looking for it.

“Oh look, someone left their potions book here!” Sirius called and Harry was treated yet again to another heart-stopping moment as Sirius lifted Snape’s annotated sixth year potions book from the exact shelf where Harry had hidden it right after the Sectumsempra episode with Malfoy, next to the bust holding the diadem. How was it here? Did Snape come here to hide the book? How had he known to put it in the exact location Harry himself had put it decades later?

“Look,” Sirius said, utterly oblivious to the silent crisis gripping Harry at that moment. “It has annotations from some pretentious bloke who calls himself—“ he paused to check the cover “—Half Blood Prince. Looks pretty interesting, see here the notes on Amortentia? Wicked!”

Harry ran up to Sirius and snapped the book away. “Give me that!”

“Hey!”

He was taller than Sirius now and was easily able to hold the book up high enough that the other boy couldn’t reach it. “It’s mine, I forgot I stored it in here before school started.”

“Is not,” Sirius growled, straining up to reach for the book.

Harry was afraid the other boy would go for his wand, but instead, he grinned mischievously at Harry and put a foot on top of Harry’s bringing the two of them flush, nose to chest. Harry’s ears started to burn at the proximity and he quite suddenly found that he couldn’t move, so utterly paralyzed was he by Sirius’ tantalizing, oblivious closeness as the boy strained up even further until he’d managed to grab a corner of the book from Harry. Smirking, he tugged, and Harry, galvanized into action lest Sirius discover the dangerous spells Snape had hidden in the book’s margins, tugged back. Hard enough to dislodge Sirius’ grip, but as he was balanced precariously on Harry’s foot, he toppled over, crashing on top of Harry, bringing both of them to the dusty floor.

Harry might have enjoyed the sudden inadvertent closeness with the boy he’d been crushing over inappropriately for the past several days now. He might have even been embarrassed at the beginnings of a boner that seemed determined to stir up in his pants, a feat he’d not managed in quite a while now, so deep was he in his apathy and depression. His face was certainly flushed red enough that it would have been fairly evident to anyone looking as to the direction his thoughts had taken when Sirius fell against him. He probably would have felt all of these things, if only their flailing about before they fell hadn’t dislodged the diadem from the bust and fell, straight onto Sirius’ head.

The effect of whatever curse Voldemort had used to protect his Horcrux was immediate: the diadem glowed a sinister green and Sirius’ face, smooth and young and fair, with just a slight dusting of red at the tops of his razor sharp cheekbones betraying his mirth had paled a ghostly white. His eyes rolled back until only the whites were visible and his lips opened in a silent scream. His hands and fingers grappled the side of his head, as if futilely trying to dislodge the crown but somehow unable to. His skin went clammy, and started to crawl, and in the circle of Harry’s arms, he could feel the boy’s muscle start to seize and shake.

“H-Harry!” he screamed in an unholy voice manifestly not his own, right into Harry’s face, before going rigid, and then going limp.

Harry lifted himself up into a sitting position and ripped the crown off Sirius’ head. He wasn’t moving. He wasn’t breathing. Harry wanted to shake his godfather hard, wanted to yell and scream at him not to leave him again. Fuck. Fuck! Sirius had already died on him once. Harry wasn’t going to allow him to die on him again.

But Harry was a seasoned former Auror now, and an Unspeakable too. He wasn’t the crying, screaming, impotent boy who’d seen his godfather blasted into the Veil of Death by Bellatrix Lestrange. He had the sort of agency in his life now that would help him save Sirius’ life.

He already knew the symptoms he was seeing in Sirius from a malicious potions dousing case he’d dealt with in the days before he’d resigned his Auror post. He ultimately hadn't been able to save any of the victims he'd found then, but the experience he'd gained from that case was useful now. The diadem had been infused with lethal portions of the Draught of Living Death. If Harry had a bezoar, like he’d had when Ron was attacked by that cursed necklace in sixth year, he could have used that to save Sirius, but there wasn’t one in the Room of Hidden Things. Running for Slughorn to demand an antidote to the potion might not be fast enough to save Sirius’ life—he wasn’t breathing, and a quick check on the pulse on his slender neck revealed his heart wasn’t beating either. Slughorn may not even have an antidote readily brewed. There was no cure at hand, so Harry did the only thing he knew how to do at this point.

He’d seen it before, how lives—souls—were taken by dementors using the dementor’s kiss. The obscure magical theory on the Kiss posited by the more scientific-minded was that the Kiss didn’t actually take the human soul so much as reached into the core and took the essence of a person that made him alive and human, and snuffed it out of existence. Harry didn’t know how to explain what that nebulous _thing_ was, but instinct made him pry Sirius’ mouth open and he reached deep into his core, where his magic raged and stormed, his skin barely able to contain the surge of power rising at his fear of losing Sirius all over again, and as he put his own mouth against Sirius’, he _pushed_ a piece of his magic from his open mouth into Sirius’.

_Please, in the name of all that is magical and good in this world. PLEASE make this work._

When he pulled his lips away, it seemed like an eternity of nothing crashing around his ears, before color suffused back into Sirius’ cheeks, and the pulse under his finger stuttered and then restarted. It was another long, heart-stopping moment before Sirius’ chest seized and then started to rise and fall steadily, as his eyelids relaxed into regular sleep, or as close to it as Harry could guess.

He sat there for a long moment, holding Sirius’ limp body against his, hugging his godfather close, as if he would never allow Sirius to leave him ever again. A sob tore through his throat, which had gone dry from overwhelming fear, and he bowed his head and let the tears fall.

When finally, he’d managed to muster his wits about him, he heaved a shuddering breath, his throat now clogged with tears and snot, grabbed the diadem and shoved it into his robe pocket, before dragging himself up, and hoisting Sirius in his arms. He found Snape’s book, thrown haphazardly on the floor, forgotten in the crisis of Sirius dying, and made the snap decision to shrink it and stick it into his pocket as well.

Sirius was not a slight boy at all, and Harry had to half-drag, half-carry him through the maze of discarded and hidden nothings, before he managed to pull Sirius out of the Room of Hidden Things. There was one more thing he needed to do here—destroy the Vanishing Cabinet, completely obliterating it from existence, so any potential future where Voldemort continued to live would mean that Malfoy would never have the chance to fix it—but it could wait until he got Sirius into the hospital wing.

Harry stayed with Sirius throughout Madam Pomfrey’s examination of him, even though the mediwitch had tried to bar him from staying in the hospital wing while she cast diagnostic spells on the unconscious boy. It seemed like an eternity before Pomfrey finally pronounced that Sirius appeared well enough to attempt to revive, but when she cast _Rennervate_ , he didn’t respond.

Harry watched, again with apprehension clogging his throat, as the mediwitch tried and tried the Reviving Spell again to little success. Sirius didn’t wake, but he didn’t seem to be in the grip of any particularly malicious spell. Harry’s stunt of pushing his magic into him to tether him back to life appeared to him been successful, but he continued to remain unconscious despite Madam Pomfrey’s best efforts.

“What happened to him, Mr Patter?” she asked, frustrated, as she stared fretfully at Sirius’ unmoving form. He looked uncharacteristically small, even on the narrow hospital cot. Even as a teenager, Sirius appeared larger than life. Unconscious, he looked breakable. Harry didn’t know if it was because he’d seen life snuffed out of him not an hour ago that he viewed Sirius as fragile now.

“Er.” Harry thought rapidly.

Madam Pomfrey didn’t know who he was; to her, Harry was just another student in school. She had no idea as to his origins or the complications he presented appearing in a world where he did not technically exist. She would have no idea as to how he would come to know what he knew, and it was out of the question to tell her about Horcruxes or how one such had attacked and killed Sirius, and that the only reason he was alive now was that Harry’s desperation had fueled his magic to breathe life back into the boy.

He squared his shoulders. Settle on a lie and stick with it. No one needed to know. “Er, potions accident, I suppose. We were brewing the Drought of Living Death.”

Madam Pomfrey sighed. “And I suppose Mr Black decided he should find out what his own concoction can do.” Harry nodded jerkily. “Fine. I suppose the requires the expertise of Professor Slughorn. Wait here with him, Mr Patter.” She started to sweep out of the sickroom and then paused at the door, turning back to Harry. “And for Merlin’s sake, please don’t do anything while I’m gone.”

Harry waited until he could no longer hear the patter of Pomfrey’s footsteps before turning back to Sirius. He knew with a certainty that filled his bones with dread that if she came back with Slughorn, and if the Potions Professor even had an antidote to the Draught of Living Death that it wouldn’t work with Sirius. Yes, an artifact doused in the Draught had done this to him, but Sirius had already died in the Room of Hidden Things. An antidote wouldn’t wake him.

But maybe Harry’s magic could.

He knelt at the side of the bed and took Sirius’ limp hand in his, drawing it to his face to press his lips to the back of the smooth, pale, youthful skin. He would never forgive himself if this didn’t work. He had no intention of relinquishing his godfather, not after he’d done the impossible and brought Sirius back to life.

Clearing his mind of the clutter of thoughts on the Horcrux and the near-tragedy that had happened in the Room of Requirement was no mean feat. The Horcrux weighed in his pocket as it did on his mind, and he had to grit his teeth to push all thoughts of Voldemort and his absurd ways of cheating death out of his consciousness and filled himself instead with everything he knew and loved about Sirius: the man who had broken out of Azkaban in Harry’s childhood, to chase after the one who had caused the death of Harry’s parents. The man who offered his home and everything he had to the abused orphan boy who never wanted to leave Hogwarts because it was the only place where he could find love. The man who, despite all the odds of being a wanted criminal, struggled to do his best to be at Harry’s side when Harry most needed him during and after the Triwizard Tournament. The man who dropped everything that he could when he heard his godson was in danger, and died trying to protect him. And now, the boy who was so beautiful, so gifted and intelligent, so cuttingly smart, that he’d discovered a means to cleave himself into Harry’s heart and pry away his secrets.

“Sirius,” he whispered. Unconsciously, his hand, the one not clutching Sirius’ to his face, slipped into his pocket and clutched the wand that Malfoy had given him. “ _Rennervate_.”

Dark eyelashes fluttered and fanned minutely against Sirius’ pale sharp cheekbones. Plush lips twitched up, and the bright dove grey eyes finally opened.

Harry stared and Sirius stared back, with the weight of recognition that had never been there before.

“Harry?”

Before Harry could reply, the door to the hospital wing burst open and James, Remus and Peter tumbled inside, Marauder’s Map clutched in James’ hand, all four of them clamoring for their best friend over missing dinner and the prank they’d just pulled on Severus Snape. Harry drank in the flicker of warmth that Sirius’ eyes directed at him for a moment, before pulling back.

They would talk later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember Harry's narration cracking a joke in Chapter 2 about being Wizarding Jesus? Well, here's Lazarus.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a fluff chapter that feels a lot like a filler, but it has a purpose beyond painting Regulus like a giddy little boy with a crush, I promise!

Harry brooded over what had happened that night, sitting alone in front of the fire in the Slytherin common room. Around him, the world continued to turn without out his intervention: groups of students clustered on the opulent dark green couches, some deep in discussion over this or that lengthy homework assigned by so-and-so teacher whose class they just couldn’t get the hang of, others played carefree games of gobstones or wizards’ chess, unmindful of the assignment due the next day. Others still busied themselves practicing charms on unsuspecting mice caught for them by the house elves. Harry couldn’t connect the picture of normalcy in a magical boarding school with the near-tragedy of Sirius dying _again_ because of his carelessness.

It felt like he didn’t occupy the same room, the same world even as these happy, carefree students, whose only worry was whether their parents would send them enough pocket money for the next Hogsmeade weekend, and not whether their friends or _godfather_ would die because an evil Dark wizard liked to carve up his soul like a piece of steak.

What if that desperate attempt at trying to resuscitate Sirius had failed? What if he’d breathed life into the boy only to part with a portion of his soul in his breath, and the Sirius who came back wasn’t the Sirius that his friends knew? This wasn’t Harry’s Sirius. He would never be Harry’s Sirius if Harry could help it. If Harry’s attempt at life magic didn’t work as well as he hoped it would, the Sirius now may well be doomed to a miserable half life, tethered to Harry’s existence.

When a boy from one of the groups approached him, Harry was wary and prepared this time, fully expecting a hex in the back, even in full view of so many people. Given how bitterly Mulciber and Snape hated him (for reasons he couldn’t fathom, Harry barely exchanged words with either boy), he wouldn’t put an attack in public past them.

He didn’t quite expect Narcissa Black to sweep her robes to one side and sit on her knees next to him.

Harry eyed her warily. “Did you have questions on the Curse-breaking homework?”

Narcissa looked at him as if he was stupid. “I can do my homework on my own, Patter.” She didn’t fidget even as she seemed to search for what to say. Finally, she lifted her eyes to his face from where she’d stared at the fire first. “I saw you with my cousin today.”

Harry rolled his eyes. Not this again. He thought he’d already heard about this stay-away-from-my-family sort of rot from the Narcissa in his timeline, the one time he’d gone back to Malfoy Manor to apprehend Theodore Nott. When Draco had come out to meet him then, Lucius and Narcissa emerged from the depths of the manor as well. Draco had been polite and grateful for his help in recovering the Time Turner, and Lucius had turned away when his son shook Harry’s hand. But Narcissa had made a comment that chilled Harry’s blood.

 _“You may think you have the world at the palm of your hands, Mr. Potter. You may even think you’ve ensnared our son. But I will never give your filthy blood what’s_ mine.”

He’d always thought before that that he’d had a fairly cordial, if stiff, accord with the Malfoys. Draco had been polite, sometimes even friendly, in the times Harry had met with him in the Ministry. Lucius kept his distance and avoided any opportunity that he may have to even converse with Harry beyond more than an acknowledging nod for Harry’s defense of his family during the Death Eater trials after the war. But Narcissa had remained steadfastly cold and unbending, believing it was nothing more than she was owed for saving his life in the forest by lying to Voldemort about his demise.

The Narcissa who faced him now seemed as cool and remote as he remembered her adult self, but the sparkle of youth hadn’t been dimmed yet by a life lived through two wars. She stared at him as if sizing him up, and for a moment, Harry thought she’d found him wanting again.

“I saw you with Sirius in this room of discarded things,” she continued and Harry had to suppress a gasp. Had she seen Sirius die?

He gazed back at her, heart in his throat. “Sirius wanted to explore the room for hidden treasure.” It was true enough if one could consider the tainted Lost Diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw a treasure. Sirius hadn’t wanted it, he hadn’t even noticed it, but the lie got him through and Narcissa nodded once.

“I followed him in the room with you. I saw that ‘treasure’ attack and kill him,” she said in a voice so low, Harry had to strain to hear her over the white noise of students in the common room. “And then, most curious of all, I saw him die, and I saw you kiss him. And then he was alive again.”

His heart was truly thudding in his chest now as he stared in the middle distance just behind her; he couldn’t meet her piercing blue eyes that seemed to see through his soul. Vaguely, he was aware that Lucius hovered just out of earshot, watching the two of them anxiously. There was another girl with Lucius, a fifth year by the looks of it, with curly black hair and swarthy skin. She eyed him with a fiercely calculating glance.

“I didn’t kiss him! I—what did you want me to say?”

Narcissa moved and then aborted whatever she may have initially wanted to do. “What happened to my cousin?”

Yet again, Harry found himself wanting to unburden himself with the truth. Narcissa was hardly trustworthy. She would grow up to marry a man who would become a Death Eater. She would bring up a boy to become a bully and a coward and she would pass down all of her bigoted views on Pureblood supremacy before she and her husband would ultimately ruin that boy’s life by pitting him against the most powerful wizard of their time at the orders of the other most powerful Dark wizard of their time. But Harry couldn’t help feeling that that Narcissa, the one he knew, isn’t the same as the girl staring up at him with fierce cold eyes, demanding to know what he had done to her wayward cousin. That Narcissa would never have healed the fatal cuts that Mulciber had inflicted on his neck. She would have condemned him to die if healing him didn’t benefit her in the least.

“Do you know who Voldemort is?” Harry asked quietly.

She gasped, horrified that he would dare say the name of the most powerful Dark wizard of the time, without use of honorifics or deference. “Yes, I know of him.”

Harry nodded. “In 1972, he applied for a teaching position at Hogwarts. He was not yet the self-styled Lord Voldemort that you know now. At the time, he wanted to be known as Professor Riddle. Tom Marvolo Riddle, a half-blood, descended from the Gaunt family.”

She scowled at him, her pretty features rearranging her face into something menacingly beautiful. “The Dark Lord is not a half-blood. Do not blaspheme!”

Harry snorted. “Oh, but he is. His father was a Muggle and his mother was no better than a Squib. Perhaps if you would like some real history, you can look up the family books on the Gaunts in the library. Marvolo Gaunt always asserted that his daughter, Merope, was a Squib. And that she ran away with the Muggle lord in their town. I’m sure you can find a yearbook from 1945 to confirm my story. Or a photograph from the Slug Club. He was Professor Slughorn’s favorite student the entire time he was in Hogwarts.”

She looked like she still didn’t believe him, but the obstinate glint in her eyes had faded and she made an impatient gesture for him to continue. “What does this have to do with what happened to my cousin?”

“Dumbledore turned Riddle away thinking him too steeped in the Dark Arts to be able to contribute to a class dedicated to the defense against it. Before he left the school, Riddle went to the room you had seen, in the seventh floor, with a magical door that appears only if you ask it for what you needed. He hid a very dark artifact there, believing himself the only one to know how that room appeared, and that his artifact would be safe.”

“And Sirius thought to just—touch this artifact? This artifact you claim to be created so dark?”

Harry shook his head. “We had a bit of an accident, and, well, we both fell. The artifact fell on Sirius when we knocked it over. It tried to kill him.”

Narcissa gasped in horror, her pale hand coming up to cover her mouth, her blue eyes seemed to grow bright and glassy for a moment before she mastered herself. “I know that ‘treasure’ did succeed to kill him,” she said, reminding him that she knew the truth of what she had seen, and that he couldn’t get away from it through semantics. “And I know that you brought him back to life.” She gathered the skirts of her robes and stood. “I don’t know who you are, Patter, and what you had done, but you have my thanks for saving my cousin. Sirius may think it a good lark to surround himself with blood traitors like James Potter and his ilk, and I may not like what he is doing, but I would never want to see my family die.”

Harry gazed up at her, emotion swelling with newfound respect. Perhaps there had been something there, even with the cold, unyielding Narcissa that he remembered from his timeline. She’d always been fiercely protective of her family, even the ones she considered outcasts.

“He’s awake now, in the hospital wing, if you want to see him,” he told her.

She nodded and made to walk away, before half-turning back with a ghost of a smile on her soft, perfectly bow-shaped pink lips. “Oh, Lucinda would like to remind you that there’s Quidditch tryouts on Saturday, Patter. Evan told her you had a broom and might want to join the team since our Seeker, Regulus, refuses to play against his brother.” Her lips twisted in a sly smile as Harry nodded bemusedly. “Surely, you know that Sirius plays for Gryffindor as Beater, especially if the both of you are consorting in hidden store rooms that no one else knows about? Good evening, Patter.”

And then she left to join Lucius. The dark girl who had been waiting with Lucius mouthed an imperious “Saturday!” at Harry, before also flouncing away.

Harry turned to stare back at the fire, uncertain as to what exactly it was that had happened, but it felt like something was finally going to give with this lot of Junior Death Eaters in Slytherin House.

* * *

On Saturday morning, Harry woke early to find Rosier already up and gathering Quidditch robes and shouldering his broom, a sleek, shiny Comet 220, a model, Harry was sure was at the top of the line in the current era. Rosier quirked an inquisitive brow when Harry got up to change in his Quidditch robes as well.

“It looks like Talkalot has had a word with you then about replacing Regulus,” he said.

Harry only nodded. Lucinda hadn’t talked to him at all except to corner him the day before to demand that he not forget his promise to Narcissa that he would be at the tryouts. Harry had, of course, made no such promise, but he was winding himself up thinking over and over about what had happened to Sirius that he felt that he was in dire need of a diversion.

It didn’t help that he hadn’t seen or talked to Sirius at all since he’d left him in the hospital wing the day the diadem attacked him. He was anxious to know what that knowing glint in Sirius’ eyes had meant before he left, but either the boy hadn’t remembered anything at all of what had happened in the attack, or he wanted nothing further to do with Harry after it.

That should really have suited Harry well enough: he didn’t want Sirius going around asking him more questions that he didn’t want to answer for fear of embroiling him in the coming conflict that Harry wanted to undertake. He didn’t need to follow Harry into a war. He’d done that before already and died for it, and Harry was not going to let that happen to him ever again, especially not after the Room of Hidden Things. But at the same time, he ached to be close to his godfather in a way he hadn’t thought he would feel again, not after the Sirius of his timeline died.

He was so conflicted about his feelings over Sirius that he had even allowed himself to wade through the days like all of the other teenagers mindlessly shuffling along their lives, just following the flow of classes, listening to lectures, and even doing homework.

Then, there was the other matter that he appeared to be losing his memories of his life from his own timeline. He’d found the parchment he’d been working on, writing out his memories of the time before he came to 1977 and he couldn’t remember anything happening as he had written it. _When_ had he worked with Malfoy in the Department of Mysteries? Why a Time Turner? What was it about? The last thing he could recall from his old life in 2017 (2017! He didn’t even remember living in the future up to that year!)was Croaker writing his paper on the magical theory about the Consumption plague. He had a vague feeling of having spent a long time as another person, and spending all of the waking hours of that long while with Malfoy, but he could gather no details from any of his recollections.

It hadn’t helped that Dumbledore still wasn’t anywhere to be seen in the school. Harry had been to ask after him from Professor McGonagall, but the Deputy Headmistress advised him that Dumbledore would be back when he would be back. He was a busy man, and there were many a concern that he attended to beyond his work in the school. Harry’s old Head of House had asked if she could help him, but Harry knew she would have no access to the Headmaster’s office, and even if she did, she had no good reason to grant it to him. He didn’t want to explain any of the memory loss to her if he could. While McGonagall was a good teacher who cared deeply for her students, she was also stern and unbending of the rules, and that included no access to the Headmaster’s office without the Headmaster’s explicit confirmation.

Finally, there was what was to be done to the Ravenclaw diadem. It was still a Horcrux; Harry didn’t know of any way to destroy Horcruxes other than using basilisk venom and Fiendfyre. The Sword of Gryffindor would not work in this timeline since it has never yet been used to fight the Serpent of Slytherin, moreover Harry was no longer a Gryffindor, so he hardly thought the Sword would ever appear to him again.

Harry supposed he could wake the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets, but he wasn’t sure if he could control it. He’d always thought the lore of the Chamber meant that only an heir of Salazar Slytherin would be able to control the basilisk, and therefore, even though Harry was a Parseltongue, it wouldn’t answer to him, unless the ancient snake understood the politics of heirship by defeat in combat. It wasn’t something he was willing to risk, especially if he couldn’t control it and then he would have to contend with a basilisk rampaging against students and teachers alike, endangering the lives not just of the innocent children in the school, but also of his parents, and Remus. And Sirius.

Harry sighed. Everything seemed to circle back to Sirius these days. It was enough to give him a migraine.

Therefore, Quidditch.

Rosier seemed to have gotten over his initial distaste for Harry once Harry started wearing the new clothes he’d purchased from Gladrags and Madam Malkin’s. In Rosier’s estimation, the clothes made the man, and Harry was a man who now warranted his grudging respect since he was dressed as impeccably as the most of other students in Slytherin, barring Severus Snape, whose greasy hair and equally grotty robes suggested hygiene that continued to be less than ideal.

“Have you played before, Patter?” Rosier asked him as the two of them walked to breakfast.

Harry was no longer the nervous boy who couldn’t stomach down a bit of toast during his first match. He’d been the captain of the Gryffindor team in his sixth year. He’d helped win the Quidditch Cup for Gryffindor in his third year. Hell, he was the youngest seeker in Hogwarts in over a century. Tryouts didn’t faze him.

“Yeah, I play some,” he replied vaguely.

“Well, you’d better be sure you’re going to be a marvel in the air,” Rosier said pompously. “Regulus is a Quidditch genius and hard to replace, and with Potter taking over captainship of Gryffindor, I expect we’ll have some competition yet.”

Harry wasn’t bothered. His father was Chaser and he knew from seeing the trophies in his detentions in first year that Gryffindor won Quidditch Cup the year James Potter made the captainship of the team. He wasn’t going to take that away from his father, but he also knew he was a damn good seeker, could have played professionally with Ginny if the Auror corps didn’t call to him. He would give his father a game that he could be proud of winning if he got into the team.

There were few students in the Great Hall, a bunch of Ravenclaws poring over books while eating porridge. Lucius was with Regulus on the Slytherin table, who was fastidiously wiping his mouth, having just finished breakfast. Regulus was a poncy little boy with the same air of self-importance that Lucius and the other Pureblood’s in Slytherin had. Harry had to work hard remembering the Regulus of his timeline who’d sacrificed his life to steal Voldemort’s Horcrux.

“Hurry up, Rosier, Patter. The rest of the team are on the pitch.,” Lucius demanded. “Regulus will be joining you to help Lucinda with Seeker selection.”

Rosier gave Harry an eye roll as if he too found Lucius overbearing and annoying as he tucked into his food. Regulus watched him as he ate until Harry felt self-conscious from the scrutiny.

“What?” he demanded. “Do I have porridge on my nose?”

Regulus’ own nose wrinkled in distaste. “Narcissa talked to me. About you and Sirius.”

Harry stopped eating and suddenly felt all the food he’d shoveled into his mouth turn to stone in his stomach. “About me and Sirius what?”

The boy sniffed at him. “You are a half-blood, Patter, and therefore you will never be worthy of my brother’s attention. However, _if_ you do well enough to make the team and catch the snitch in every game you play, I may reconsider giving you my blessing.”

Harry turned to both Lucius and Rosier, trying to make sense of what Regulus was saying, but Lucius ignored him, and Rosier only smiled slyly, his heavy lidded dark eyes dancing with mirth.

“Allowing a half-blood to consort with your brother the blood traitor, Reg. What will your parents say?”

Regulus, his young face looking remarkably like the adult Sirius that Harry remembered, gave Rosier a withering smile. “My brother is misguided, but if Patter is worthy, that hardly matters at all. And don’t laugh about half-bloods. _You’re_ friends with Snape.”

Rosier laughed good-naturedly, wiped his mouth and stood from his seat, clapping Harry in the back in a gesture that was almost companionable. “He’s got a good sense of humor, this one. Come along, Patter.”

The Slytherin team was, for lack of a better descriptor, nothing like the sausage fest Harry remembered in his school years playing with Draco. Lucinda Talkalot, their captain was a Beater, a position that fit well with the sleek lithe muscle that peeked from the gaps between her elbow padding and the Quidditch robes. Rosier was the other Beater, again playing well with the position as he was a tall, muscular boy who could handle mixing force and agility well in the air. Narcissa Black, Harry was astounded to find out, was a Chaser, and now he understood why Lucius had come to the pitch with them. Two other boys who were introduced as Edgar Travers, a seventh year, and Stephen Urquhart, a fifth year and whose face Harry recognized resembled the Slytherin Quidditch player from his time well enough to be that boy’s father, completed the Chasers. The team had no Keeper, and that probably meant that the post would be up for tryouts.

He wondered if the team was any good. He’d heard Rosier and Avery discussing Talkalot’s captainship a few nights before, but she, like most of the players on the team, had played from their younger years. Harry couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that Draco would have learned and inherited his Quidditch skills from his mother, and not his father whom he idolized so much when he was younger.

Lucinda had the hopefuls for Keeper and Seeker divided across the team respectively. Narcissa, Travers and Urquhart would field the Keeper hopefuls by getting the Quaffle through the home court hoops. The hopefuls who let the least number of Quaffles through would move on to scrimmage games. There were four Seeker hopefuls, including Harry. One a third year boy who knew Regulus, another a fifth year boy whose pockmarked face Harry instantly recognized as Augustus Rookwood, a burly seventh year by the unfortunate name of Greyson Craggy, and Harry himself. They were to be tested individually, catching the snitch and at the same time evading the Bludgers that the Beaters would lob against them.

Harry had to tear his attention away from the Keeper trials because he was so astounded at Narcissa being one of the Chasers in order to focus on the performance of his competition. The third year boy went first. He was a tiny thing with dark skin and red hair that clashed against the green and silver robes of the Slytherin team and trailed after him like a bright flame as he zipped away from the heavy Bludgers batted in his direction by the powerful swings Lucinda and Rosier lobbed. It dragged on for about ten minutes before Harry realized the boy wasn’t even searching for the Snitch, and was just dancing around with his fancy broom in the air.

Lucinda finally caught on to the fact that the boy wasn’t trying to find the Snitch and called a halt, so that Rookwood could replace him.

Rookwood had none of the finesse in the air that the third year boy displayed, but he was reasonably fast on his broom. Rosier’s Bludger clipped him against the shoulder just as he found the Snitch, he lost sight of it and had to begin anew. He was pelted seven more times by both Lucinda and Rosier that by the time he returned to the stands having caught the Snitch after an hour in the air, he had two black eyes and undoubtedly a maze of bruises under his robes.

Harry was next, and he mounted his Nimbus and rose to the air. Rosier didn’t wait for Lucinda’s signal, as he had for Rookwood, and started lobbing Bludgers in Harry’s direction with a predatory smile. Harry grinned an equally vicious snarl as he nudged his broom around, akin to the dancing maneuvers the third year had displayed, even as he scanned the air for the golden glint of the Snitch.

The sun was climbing to a bright autumn morning, and the Bludger attacks coming over, under and around him were vicious and deadly, but Harry had played in more dangerous circumstances when he was younger and less in control of his movements on a broom as he had now. Lucinda and Rosier’s attacks were nothing like Dobby’s rogue Bludger, and though the Nimbus beneath him would never be as lightning-quick responsive as his Firebolt had been, he’d flown more difficult games when his broom had been bewitched by Quirrel in his first year.

A close call on his broom’s tail bristles had him spinning off course for a moment, and as he righted himself, he glimpsed a bit of metal on the other side of the pitch, near the home court hoops where the Keeper tryouts were still going on. Kicking himself up higher in the air, he dove a wide arc after the Snitch, which had apparently sensed his descent and started to flitter towards the scrimmaging Chasers. Harry dodged lightning fast out of the way of a barreling Urquhart, dodged again as Narcissa yelled at him to get away from the home court, before diving towards the ground, skimming the grass as he strained forward and caught the Snitch, triumphant, without ever having hit any of his fellow players or clipped by a Bludger.

He shouldered his broom as he climbed back up to the stands where Lucius and Regulus sat together. Lucius regarded him with grudging respect, but Regulus’ eyes were shining.

“Perhaps we’ll give Sirius and Potter a good game yet with you,” he said mysteriously to Harry, before turning his eyes back up to the air, where Craggy lumbered on his broom, sluggish and heavy and prime target for the viciously playing Beaters.

When the Keeper tryouts completed, Lucinda divided the team into halves. Narcissa, Harry and Rosier on one side, with their Keeper a tall, gangly fourth year called Joel Harper, and Travers, Rookwood, Lucinda, and their Keeper, Rabastan Lestrange. Urquhart would sit out the scrimmage game.

Narcissa nodded coldly to Rosier, even as she flipped her shining blond ponytail off her shoulder. “You know what to do, Evan. Patter, given your performance, I assume you’re not entirely useless. Harper, don’t let a single Quaffle in or I’ll crush you.”

Harper stammered an affirmative, and Harry turned to Rosier. “Keep the Bludgers on Travers, and away from Narcissa. I can handle myself.”

Rosier grinned again, that jagged predatory smile. “Pleasure, Patter.”

They took to the air and Urquhart, who played referee, released the balls. Narcissa elbowed Travers roughly out of the way to get the Quaffle. She played a mean, dirty, rough game that belied her dainty, fragile appearance as she zipped through the air, Rosier flanking her to keep Lucinda’s Bludgers away. Harry tore his eyes away from them and ascended higher, above the tangle of players and zipping balls to look for the Snitch. Rookwood copied him, his greasy hair flying in the breeze. Harry hoped he wouldn’t come near; by the looks of him, he had about the same hygiene habits as Snape.

“Think you can walk away with the position, Patter?” Rookwood said snidely as he lazily tailed Harry. Below them, he heard Narcissa yell a goal, Lestrange cursing after her.

“I’m just playing while I can,” Harry replied, unbothered. Rookwood was nowhere as good a flier nor even as witty an opponent as Malfoy. He was about as uninteresting as a flobberworm and Harry wasn’t about to engage him in his boring remarks.

He flew idly, dashing occasionally to avoid a Bludger, but kept his flight well above the other players so he didn’t get in Narcissa’s way. He waited until she yelled goal five more times, with Travers matching her at closely at four before he started looking for the Snitch in earnest.

Rookwood continued to talk smack and Harry continued not to pay attention until he spotted the Snitch about ten feet behind Rookwood’s head. If the other Seeker turned, he would see and catch the Snitch ahead of Harry, so Harry grinned to himself and sped in the other direction, climbing higher and higher into the air.

As expected, Rookwood followed him, thinking he’d seen the Snitch. Harry veered left towards the empty Ravenclaw stands, and then _dove_.

Logically, he knew it was nothing like the Wronski Feint he could perform on his Firebolt, but the adrenaline that rushed through his veins was all the same as he shot forward at breakneck speed. Rookwood’s turn was sloppy but he caught himself quickly enough to trail a few feet behind Harry. As the stands started to near dangerously, Rookwood let out an alarmed yell and veered off course. Harry grinned even wider to himself as he caught a glimpse of the Snitch again some fifteen feet away, towards the Gryffindor stands. Rookwood was already flying in the opposite direction as he tried to gain back control of his broom, and Harry was free to zoom after, straining, to catch the snitch, holding it above his head, exultant in the head rush of flying and the adrenaline of the game.

Lucinda recalled them back to the ground, her teeth gleaming against her dark skin as she looked up as Harry landed next to Rosier and Narcissa.

“Well done! Patter and Lestrange, you’re in. Harper, I need you to stay second string. You let far less goals in than Lestrange, but then Rab’s been hit a couple times, good work, Rosier.” She turned the same shining eyes that had been on Regulus’ face at Harry. “Patter, I don’t know whether you have a death wish, the Wronski Feint was an amazing move to distract Rookwood, but hardly appropriate in school league Quidditch.”

Harry snorted. “Nothing’s inappropriate for school league Quidditch,” he muttered, thinking about Quirrel and Dobby and Malfoy dressed up as a dementor, and an actual dementor, all interrupting his game at various moments in his school Quidditch career.

“Too right,” Lestrange responded with a cool nod at Harry.

“Cissa, if you hit me again, Lucius and I will have to have words,” Travers grumbled, even as Narcissa laughed, a touch cruelly.

“I’d like to see you try.”

Lucinda clapped her hands once. “Enough of that. You lot make a good team. Urquhart, get yourself trained up with Cissy and Ed. Rab, get yourself seen to by Pomfrey. Patter, try not to do anything illegal in our actual games.” She looked up at the stands and held up a thumbs up to Regulus and pointed to Harry. Regulus responded with two thumbs up of his own, and that was it. Harry was in the team.

The team walked to the changing rooms, trailed after by Lucius and Regulus. Harry found himself gravitating to them, along with Narcissa, since they were the ones he knew and felt the least threatened with his safety, and Harry felt utterly bemused by the turn of events that he was hanging around with these junior Death Eaters in an almost companionable manner. Narcissa was actually grinning at him, not smiling politely while pretending his presence didn’t irk her, but grinning widely in a manner Harry really could only associate with Malfoy in his youth. Lucius was smiling indulgently at her, and turning the same smile to Harry. Regulus looked at him as if his next ten Christmases came early.

“So, how did Mr Patter fare, do you think, Regulus?” Narcissa asked mischievously.

Regulus stared up at Harry, his eyes worshipful. “Are you sure you like my brother?”

Lucius and Narcissa laughed. “Your mother wouldn’t be best pleased.”

“Mother will just have to live with it,” Regulus said stuffily. “And if neither of you tell her, she doesn’t have to know.”

“Perhaps you may ask Patter if which Black brother he would prefer,” Lucius said primly, displaying a sense of humor Harry didn’t know he even had.

Regulus scowled at him before he turned back to Harry, brimming with childlike curiosity. Gone was the stuffy little Pureblood that had strutted around the castle. This now was a little boy who’d just found a new hero. “Did you really kiss Sirius in a broom cupboard?”

Harry stared at him in horror as Narcissa started to giggle girlishly. “I did no such thing!”

”That wasn’t what I saw!” Narcissa replied in a singsong voice, skipping away as if Harry would swat at her to join Lucinda in the female changing rooms.

Harry was about to go in after Rosier, Travers, Lestrange and Urquhart, when Lucius stopped him. The mirth in his face was gone, and he regarded Harry with a serious expression.

“Patter, Cissa mentioned another story you told her, about the owner of the ‘treasure’ whose magic attacked Sirius.” He glanced meaningfully at Regulus, keeping his wording vague. “I’m troubled as to how you know the origins of the man who made them, or how you can tell it as if it were the truth.”

Harry stared hard up at Lucius’ flat grey eyes, nowhere as expressive as Sirius’ or Draco’s, who both had a silver glimmer in dove or stormy grey. “It _is_ the truth, Malfoy, and I don’t need to tell you how I know. I _read_. I’m sure if you do too, you’d find the same information I gave her. Everything is in the yearbooks and family magics section in the library.”

Lucius nodded firmly. “I’ll be sure to spend some time. Perhaps my father was mistaken in his notions and intimation to have me join this man after Hogwarts.”

Harry looked at both him and Regulus and nodded as well. “Perhaps.”

* * *

Harry's list of things to accomplish in 1977 - parchment he wrote up before Sirius accosted him outside of the Room of Requirement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is like the chapter in which Harry Potter is a bit of a dork.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have a fluffy bit of romance this week. I'm going to be traveling so updates are gonna be slower than before. Wish me luck being out in the middle of a pandemic :o
> 
> Edited to add: TW: Suicide in this chapter.

Meal times with the Slytherins improved after the Quidditch tryouts. Oh, there were certainly still people who despised Harry for his blood status. There was no dearth of comments about how his flying must have been a fluke, that it was impossible for a half-blood to out-fly a Pureblood like Rookwood, and how Regulus probably shouldn’t have resigned his position. And then there were the people who just hated him. Snape and his two friends, Avery and Mulciber, though made loud disparaging remarks about Harry’s blood status, and even once calling him the “bastard brother of that blood traitor, Potter.” But overall, the Slytherins had stopped trying to attack him or giving him the cold shoulder, Quidditch being the universal glue that bound teenagers in solidarity.

Harry wasn’t fussed about the ill remarks on his blood status—he’d never really cared and the insults were unimaginative and dull, all things he’d already heard Malfoy throw at him and Hermione in his time, and with much more aplomb. He didn’t take too kindly to the comments about his parentage, though. For Snape to insinuate that his mother was a slag (what a fucking hypocrite when he was constantly up to his gills mooning over Lily Evans, whose attentions he’d already lost even before Harry arrived in this timeline) and his father an adulterer (fat chance of that happening, when James seemed to operate with tunnel vision where Lily was concerned.)

He knew he should’ve let the insults slide since Snape was just a child, and he was an adult, but there were just some things even he couldn’t abide by, and insults heaped on his parents, _who were right fucking there in the next table_ , was one of those things. And so when Snape muttered fairly audibly in the middle of Potions class that Harry’s mother was nothing better than an animal, for that was how wizards view Muggles apparently, Harry saw red.

He dropped the stirring rod into the cauldron of Wiggenweld Potion that he shared with a sixth year girl called Tilda Vanity, and lunged over their table, landing a solid hook on Snape’s jaw. The classroom erupted in chaos. Sixth year Slytherin and Gryffindor alike were yelling, some in dismay as the fight exploded into a full on brawl as Mulciber tried to haul Harry away from where he was determined to bash Snape’s nose into his skull, and Avery retaliated on his friend’s behalf by kneeing Harry on his side. Not about to be outclassed by some sixteen-year-old punk, Harry sent an elbow into Avery’s face, and then he and Snape rolled on to the floor, grappling each other and throwing punches.

“Get ‘im, Patter!” one of the Gryffindors that sounded suspiciously like James Potter hooted, while the Slytherins cried out for order and some called for Slughorn, who instantly materialized at the doorway of the classroom, horrified at the brawl.

“That’s enough, gentlemen! Mr Patter, Mr Snape, Mr Mulciber, Mr Avery, control yourselves, please!”

Harry let himself be hauled up to his feet by Rosier this time, who was scowling at him though not quite giving him the stink eye. He could feel bruises swelling on his jaw, the sides of his body where Avery had been kicking him, and blood trickling out of his nose, which was broken thanks to Snape landing a punch. He smugly assessed that for taking them three to one, Mulciber, Snape and Avery were definitely not in any better position as him. Snape had a huge red bruise forming over the entire right side of his face. His nose was also broken, and his lower lip split. Avery had a black eye where Harry had elbowed him, and Mulciber was awkwardly clutching his shin.

“Really,” Slughorn ranted, “tussling in a class where you brew dangerous potions! Brawling at all in a classroom in Hogwarts! I have never been more ashamed of you, and you four belong in my house. Fifty points from Slytherin for the damage the lot of you have done to your classmates’ potion projects, and detention for a week!”

“Potter, Quidditch practice!” Rosier hissed at his side. “Talkalot’ll have your hide!”

Harry shrugged his hand off his shoulder, where he was still holding him back. “I’ll handle it. Leave me alone.”

“But Narcissa—“

“I said I’ll take care of it,” Harry spat, as Slughorn dismissed the class and instructed Rosier to take Snape, Avery and Mulciber to Pomfrey for their injuries.

“Mr Patter, please stay behind.”

Harry wanted to roll his eyes, but since one of them was swollen, that wasn’t a particularly comfortable response.

“What do you want?” he demanded when everyone had completely cleared out the classroom.

Slughorn tutted. “Harry, I know it’s difficult to deal with these students day in and day out when you’ve likely never had to deal with them for years in your timeline.”

“Not students, just Snape,” Harry muttered venomously.

“But you have to remember,” Slughorn continued as if he hadn’t heard him, “they’re just that: students. They’re hormonal and irrational in their hatred of you, but they’re young yet.”

“They’re junior Death Eaters is what they are,” Harry said mutinously, even though he didn’t quite believe this at all. Wasn’t he making headway with Narcissa? And Lucius and Regulus were easily swayed with her influence, maybe even Rosier since he wasn’t quite as into the insults and fighting that Harry’s other roommates seemed hellbent on instigating ever since Quidditch tryouts.

“You don’t know that will happen,” Slughorn reasoned. “Mr Potter, you’ve been here three weeks. The future has already changed, and I have to ask you, as the Head of Slytherin House, not to completely discount them. They’re young yet. They can still be swayed from You-Know-Who.”

Harry scoffed, but didn’t add anymore vitriol. He was getting a headache from his black eye, and it was really quite hard to talk with a broken nose. “Are you expecting me to sit in some shit detention with these brats?”

Slughorn sighed and shook his head. “Hardly, if I want no further destruction in my classrooms. Minerva is conducting detentions with her Gryffindors, something to do with a group of boys in her House charming the house elves’ scouring pads to chase young Mr Snape last week. You’ll have to join them instead. I think it might do you some good to cool your head off.”

Harry scowled but acquiesced. It wasn’t particularly different from when Robards set him on desk duty when he screwed up with the Aurors. McGonagall would make them write lines or read and correct first year essays on elementary Transfiguration. The repetition and bad grammar would take his mind off his anger.

Slughorn appeared to nod to himself when Harry didn’t fight him on this. “Good show then, Mr Potter. Now please get yourself to the hospital wing to get sorted out.”

“I can heal myself just fine,” Harry retorted petulantly and then proceeded to stomp out of the classroom before he remembered a side project he’d been meaning to ask Slughorn. “Oh, Professor? I have need for a brewing room, strictly after hours. Private project from my timeline.”

Slughorn heaved another long-suffering sigh and nodded. “Very well. You may use the Study Room 6, the one next to my office.”

“And I need access to your ingredients store, unless you don’t want to give it to me, in which case, I’ll just steal what I need.”

“Yes, yes, all right. Please go now, Potter, and let us all have a pleasant evening uninterrupted with your shenanigans.”

Harry let himself smile a private, self-satisfied smile.

* * *

As it turned out, healing himself was a bit of an exercise that he really should have left to an expert. Harry couldn’t understand why his magic hadn’t just spontaneously tried to heal his injuries from the fight. He hadn’t been trying to hold his magic back at all, preferring to have his nose back on straight. Instead, he stood now in the third floor bathrooms with his robes off and his shirt hanging open. The wandless healing spells he’d grown accustomed to were a hit or miss on the bruises around his ribs. Some of them turned yellow and green instantly, while others, especially the larger ones, stubbornly remained an angry red and ringed with purple. He hadn’t even started on his nose, which was still broken and still bleeding, or his black eye, and if wandless spells weren’t going to cut it for the bruises on his body, there was no way he was going to attempt it on his face.

Fed up with his magic going wonky, he grabbed Malfoy’s wand from the pocket of his discarded robes and pointed it at the giant map of a bruise on his left side, wordlessly casting _Reparifors_ at it and watching the mottled colors darken to indigo, before lightening to green and then yellow, then did the same for the bruises on his cheeks and jaw.

He was about to get started on his nose when the bathroom door opened and Sirius Black waltzed in as if he owned the place. Harry was surprised to see he was alone and not trailed after by James.

“Hello,” Harry wheezed as a glob of blood oozed out his right nostril.

Sirius grinned widely at him, like he was unaccountably proud that Harry had gotten himself so beaten up that he needed to hide out in a bathroom like a ninny to fix himself up. “That was such a mean right hook there, Patter.” The grin widened to a razor edge. “Or should I say, Potter?”

Harry’s eyes widened at the knowing smirk Sirius threw at him. “You remember?!”

“Err, no actually,” Sirius replied, scratching his head. “I don’t know what it was that… that attacked me in that room, the Room of Hidden Things, but it gave me a… I suppose you could say it’s a vision? Only it seemed to go on for years and years. Remus said it’s like that Muggle dark room with the giant talking pictures, a flim or something.” Harry thought he looked adorable, scrunching his nose and trying to remember Muggle things that Remus must have taught him, but Sirius only looked oddly at Harry. “I went to Azkaban…”

“Yeah,” Harry said, using the tail of his open shirt to swipe at the blood that continued to dribble out of his nose.

“Oh, shit, sorry!” Sirius exclaimed and pulled out his wand. “Wait, let me do that for you. _Episkey!”_

Harry’s face glowed hot for a moment with the wash of Sirius’ magic before he felt the crackle of cartilage resetting and his nose righted itself, blood stopped pouring, and he could finally breathe properly again without fluid mucking up his air passage. Sirius repeated the spell on his black eye, smiling appreciatively when all of the bruises faded from Harry’s face, and then cleaned his face up of all the blood that had smeared across his upper lip and cheeks for good measure.

“Handy spell to knowwhere I’ve come from,” he commented, pocketing his wand. “But then, you’d know about that, since you’ve apparently spent some time with my horrid, drunken, reeking, Azkaban-ravaged older self who told you about his sob story childhood with his Pureblood supremacist family, and was apparently stupid enough to get himself killed.”

Harry nodded. “Yeah, prison changes you, I suppose. What do you remember?”

“I don’t… I don’t really remember.” Sirius struggled for a moment to try to find words to explain what it was that had happened to him while he’d been in the grip of the diadem’s magic. “That is to say, I don’t remember _it_ , any of it, happening to _me_. It was more like… like watching this man who _looked_ like me, and talked like me and acted like me, except of course you know I would never try to kill Peter or think Remus would betray me—they’re my friends— do things I’d never even dream of doing. It isn’t me, but it looked a hell of a lot like me, escaping from Azkaban and chasing after Peter… And then when I… when I died, I saw you. You were crying.”

Harry swallowed and hung on every word out of Sirius’ mouth. “Tell me… please tell me what you saw.”

The tale Sirius regaled him with filled Harry’s chest with a sort of exquisite pain as he talked of the world Harry had known during the second Wizarding war. Sirius spoke of grief over James’ and Lily’s deaths, chasing after Pettigrew, twelve years in Azkaban, surrounded only by the impotent howls of the wicked and the sinister whisper of dementors. He talked of spending months in his animagus form, dodging Aurors and dementors alike, looking for his godson, looking for Pettigrew. He talked of dying, his soul taken by the Dementor’s Kiss, and Harry and Hermione mucking with Time to save him, of fleeing abroad to hide when his name wasn’t cleared because Snape was a vindictive arse, and coming back to England to fight for the Order. He talked about days spent alone in the new prison the Order had fashioned for him in Grimmauld Place, of hearing about Harry getting into trouble in the Ministry, of falling into the Veil of Death and dying.

And then, incredibly, he continued on to talk about Harry’s grief and anger at his death. Of Harry learning to live with that grief and allowing it to help him mature. He talked of the Horcrux hunt, and that year of the Camping Trip From Hell, of Harry facing down with Voldemort, Harry dying, and coming back to life and ending the war with nothing more than a second year Disarming Spell. He talked about the years that followed, of Harry marrying, having children. Of the Magical Consumption that took Harry’s wife and children. Of Harry retreating into the bowels of the Department of Mysteries, convinced he was the cause of the Magical Consumption plague, and desperately trying to find a cure with his death.

“There was a man in you past, in your timeline, I mean,” Sirius said, his voice hoarse now from talking for so very long over things that alternately choked him up and filled him with laughter. “Looked a fair bit like Head Boy Malfoy.”

“Draco,” Harry supplied. “I went to school with him. He became a Death Eater, and then regretted it and I helped him for a bit after the war.”

Sirius nodded, lost in thought. “Like Regulus in that story.” He glanced up at Harry suddenly, eyes darkening with suspicion. “Did you know that he’s dead?”

“Who?” Harry asked. “Regulus? Yeah, he died before I was even born—“

“No. Not Reg. That blond man with you in the Department of Mysteries. He’s dead.”

“What?” Harry exclaimed, utterly gobsmacked. When? _How_ had Malfoy died? And Harry _really_ worked with him in the DoM? Over the Time Turner that was in Harry’s robe pocket with the diadem and his parchment of plans for 1977? He supposed he must have and it was just one of those memories that have slipped him by entirely since he came to this era. Sirius recounted everything else that had happened in Harry’s timeline with startling accuracy, even disclosing information that Harry only came to know of much later on before they were relevant of things had occurred.

“Yeah. You talked to his ghost for over a year before you came here. There was something funny about him though, his ghost, I mean. Something sinister I can’t place. Not really him per se, but how he appeared to you. Like he was real but he wasn’t. I can’t really explain it. It wasn’t a fever dream you were having, that much I’m sure. You were fairly lucid then, it seemed like. He was just really, really strange. Didn’t you know?”

“I don’t… I don’t remember,” Harry trailed off, puzzling over this new piece of information. Was that why he seemed to be able to hear Malfoy now? Because he was dead? Were ghosts even able to travel across time and space? “How did he die? You must have seen it.”

Sirius nodded, his brows furrowing into a frown. “Yes. He hung himself in his manor’s dungeons, after the Lucius and Narcissa in that vision died of the Magical Consumption.”

Harry felt his knees go weak as he thought of the Lucius and Narcissa he’d been talking to in this timeline, thought of them dying, either wasted away with no magic, or overpowering and then exploding violently like his children had.

“Shit,” he whispered, leaning back against the sinks, when he felt his legs could no longer support him. “I don’t… I can’t remember any of these things anymore, a lot of what you saw. It’s like, I’ve been having gaps in my memories since I came here. I don’t understand it.”

“You mean like you’ve also been having gaps in the strength of your overpowered magic?”

Harry stared up at Sirius’ shrewd face. He’d seen that too? That Harry had started to overpower when people started dying in his timeline, and now, his magic going erratic and wonky while his memory of his own timeline started to fill with unexplained gaps?

“Not the part where your magic’s been draining when you got here, but that’s not hard to guess,” Sirius said as if he’d read exactly what harry was thinking. “Don’t be surprised; it’s easy to see if you’ve been watching yourself as closely as I have.” He grinned cheekily when Harry’s ears started to turn red.

He cleared his throat when Harry appeared too flustered to reply. “Anyway, you haven’t answered my question: what was that thing that attacked me? How did it make me see all of these things?”

“Huh,” Harry said and grabbed his robes from the floor, fishing for the diadem in the pocket and holding it up for Sirius to inspect, though the boy was wary not to touch it. “Well, you’ve already seen my timeline, so you know. This is one of Voldemort’s Horcruxes, that’s why it attacked you. As to the visions, I don’t know, but before it was a Horcrux, it’s the Lost Diadem of Ravenclaw.”

Sirius nodded thoughtfully. “That… I suppose it makes sense. The Ravenclaw’s Diadem was meant to give the wearer unimaginable knowledge. Maybe that means knowledge of the future?”

Harry shuddered at the thought that the future was set in stone and anything he did in this timeline would still result in the two Wizarding Wars and the Magical Consumption that resulted from it. “I hope not.”

Sirius nodded soberly. But then his irrepressible spirit couldn’t dampen the cheeky smile that stole over his face again as he looked Harry up and down. “So. You’re Prongs’ son.”

“Yep,” said Harry, popping the ‘p’. “Hard to imagine when you’re sixteen that you’re gonna pop out a kid that grows old and weird in the future, huh?”

Sirius nodded but ignored his comment, still smiling that unnerving, charming smile. “And you’re my godson.”

“Yeah,” Harry said again, softer this time, his ears hot and blood roaring behind his eardrums as Sirius slithered closer. He could feel his face growing warm as Sirius’ eyes darkened further with a different, heavier flavor now as he grabbed the open front of Harry’s ruined, blood-stained shirt. “Wh—What are you doing?”

“What’s it look like I’m doing?” Sirius smiled predatorily at him, his voice low and husky. “I’m going to kiss the boy who rescued me from certain death, and an unimaginable future spent in Azkaban is what I’m doing.”

Harry panicked and tried to squirm away. This was just… it was wrong! He was an adult and Sirius was his fucking godfather! Maybe not _now,_ but in the future, certainly. The future that Harry was still trying his damnedest to rectify before any of the events that set the wars in motion came to pass.

“Sirius—wait! I—“

Sirius wasn’t having it though. “What’s the matter? I think you’re fit and you obviously can’t keep your eyes off me.” He leered and Harry flushed uncomfortably.

“What do you mean what’s the matter?” Harry cried, keeping the boy at arms length. “I’m _old!_ I may look like I’m seventeen, but I’m thirty—oh thirty-something! I can’t remember when I left my timeline anymore with all the gaps in my memory.”

“And I died when I was thirty six in your timeline, but I’m sixteen now.” He smoothed a hand on Harry’s chest, the touch of his palm sending a tingle across his bare skin. “Works out pretty damn well for us, don’t you think?”

“I—I—“ He couldn’t think of anything else to say, and it wasn’t like his body wasn’t on fire with the way Sirius was pressing up at him. He was sure he was going to hell for this. Absolutely certain of it. But Harry had never really been one for self-control and following what was proper. And Sirius really felt good in his arms right about now.

“Stop talking because I’m going to kiss you now, Harry Potter,” Sirius Black declared.

And Harry found that he didn’t really want to struggle anyway as Sirius pressed him up against the sinks of the third floor boy’s bathrooms, and kissed him until his head felt empty but the feel of his warm lips, until the skin of his chest and torso tingled from the brush of Sirius’ deft fingers on his body, until his mouth tingled and his legs couldn’t hold him up anymore from the fire of this beautiful, wonderful boy’s attentions.

Harry forgot all about his list of things to accomplish, he forgot about Voldemort and Horcruxes, about Time Turners and dead Malfoys in the manor dungeons. He forgot about the diadem in his hand and let it clatter to the floor, as he lost himself in spending the rest of the afternoon trading kisses with a Sirius Black he’d never dream would be anything like he’d experienced in his timeline, and trying not to hate himself for being a dirty old creep.

Later, when their lips were on fire and swollen and all kissed out, they sat together on the floor of the bathroom. Sirius was all shy, tentative fingers touching him, while Harry had to reluctantly do his shirt up and put on his robes so he wouldn’t be tempted to take advantage of the clumsy but eager attentions of the boy before him. He tried to do his best to put his mind away from the straining arousal trapped in his trousers, even as Sirius’ persistent hands insisted on creeping in under his robes.

“You know, I have to confess something to you,” Sirius said softly as he leaned in and pecked at Harry’s lips again, a chaste kiss this time that didn’t lead anywhere.

“What?” Harry asked, voice hoarse with pent up desire.

“At first, I really only liked you because you were as fit as James.” The blush that suffused his cheeks was a thing of carnal fantasy. “You look so much like him and I’ve had the most embarrassing crush on him since third year. I’m sort of glad you turned up and look so much like him, even if I thought it was thirty different kinds of weird to see this stranger look exactly like my best friend. Not really surprising now, since you’re apparently his sprog, his and Evans’.” He chuckled at the idea. “Can you imagine Prongs and Evans actually getting their shit together long enough for them to get married and have you? Must’ve taken a cataclysm for _that_ to happen.”

Harry laughed nervously. He didn’t really want to imagine his parents getting together and getting it on the way he was now with Sirius. That was just… ah, just what he needed to kill the boner straining in his pants. If this continued every time he was in the same room as Sirius, things were going to get really inconvenient very fast, especially since Sirius, it seemed, couldn’t keep his hands off him.

“I didn’t think I really liked you enough to… I dunno, do this with you, until you punched Snivellus today, though,” Sirius said. “That was a thing of beauty, it was.”

“He was being a prick about my mum and dad,” Harry muttered. “Couldn’t let him get away with it, not after he’d subjected me to six years of hell when I was in school.”

“I can’t believe Dumbledore actually made him a teacher. A teacher, can you imagine! Snivellus isn’t fit for any polite society, much less a school.”

Harry hummed in agreement, not really wanting to discuss Snape or his awful comments about Harry’s parents. Not while he and Sirius were making out anyway.

“I had a thought,” Harry said, adjusting his glasses, which now sat askew on his nose, after a moment of them groping each other again, and Sirius stopped trying to get him out of his robes and cocked his head expectantly. “Are you… have you told James? Or Remus and Peter? About what happened in the Room of Hidden Things, and what you saw in your vision?”

Sirius huffed and pulled his hands away, put out that Harry had interrupted what was going to be a pleasurable next half hour. “I haven’t. I want to, though. James at least, tell him about what happened in the Room of Hidden Things. Can’t think of a way to tell him that I’ve had visions of a future where he croaks it, even if he does marry Evans. Or that his Prongslet had to go through some type of endless trial by fire to save the world. Doesn’t really make for good dinner conversation.” He looked inexplicably old, as if suddenly being saddled with the weight of knowing how the future turned out aged him beyond measure.

Harry nodded, swallowing. “Yeah.”

“Don’t you want me to tell them?” Sirius asked suddenly looking young and unsure. “I want to tell them at least about you.” He smiled shyly. “About us.”

“I’m not going to stop you.” Harry shook his head. “I don’t want to dictate anything you want to do just because I’m older. You already have enough people doing that in your life.”

“Thanks,” Sirius said, sweet and shy and grateful and sixteen again. His eyes sparkled as he stood up suddenly, and grabbed Harry to help him to his feet. “Can’t wait to tell Prongs I’m macking with the Slytherin Seeker! Oh Merlin, Moony’s going to be insufferable with all the teasing I’ve had to endure since you arrived.”

Harry had to laugh as he let Sirius drag him out of the bathroom towards the Transfiguration classroom where his detention was apparently to be held with the Marauders. Sirius prattled on about the prank they’d played on Snape of charming the scouring pads from the kitchens to chase after Snape in an effort to try to rub all the grease off Snape’s stringy hair, and Harry had to admit that the prank was all shades of genius.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Stop talking because I’m going to kiss you now, Harry Potter_ is a power move. Harry has a tendency for pithy lines like _prison changes you_ (courtesy of my sister, who was laughing endlessly when I told her about this story) but Sirius knows how to get things going on if you know what I mean.
> 
> Also, I promise I will resolve the Snape debacle. Snape is one of the characters I least liked reading Harry Potter, and I felt like the movies made him glossier and less of a dick than he was in the books, but he was an integral part of the story, and I want to make it so that he isn't just Malfoy 2.0 in this fic.
> 
> Lastly, don't panic about Draco! I haven't forgotten or written him out of the story! He'll be here for some time yet.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I said before I thought I might be posting more slowly because of traveling for work, but the internet where I'm at is good enough, and I have my laptop, so here, have another fluffy, sort of schmoopy chapter before we get back to the plot. McGonagall appears very little in this story, but when she does, she's like the most wonderful person ever.

Harry was surprised that Sirius did not immediately James and Remus about him as soon as they were in detention together. That may have been because McGonagall was already in the classroom waiting for the four of them, her already stern face drawing even tighter once Harry slinked into the room after Sirius. Peter was conspicuously absent.

“Pettigrew not with you?” he whispered to Sirius as McGonagall set her three Gryffindors to writing lines of “ _I will not steal kitchen implements to attack my classmates”_.

“Managed to weasel his way out it,” Sirius muttered back. At Harry’s scowl, he gave a shrug. “He was lookout and McG hadn’t spotted him in the kitchens with us.”

“Mr Patter, if you please, to the front,” McGonagall said primly. Harry ambled up, wondering what sort of schoolboy drudgery McGonagall could think of to assign someone she knew was no student but had to treat like one anyway. “These are the sixth year papers on Human Transfiguration and the practicality of its use. You are to assist in me checking an grading these essays.”

Twin cries of horror erupted from James and Remus, while Sirius gave Harry a knowing smirk.

“Professor, you can’t let a Slytherin grade our papers!” James cried, horrified that he might be subjected to the typical biases in judgment when someone from another House was made to review their work.

“Hush, Mr Potter,” McGonagall replied, unbothered. “I’m sure Mr Patter will be perfectly fair in his review and grading, and if he isn’t, I will ensure to review his work after he is done.”

Harry warily took the stack of parchment McGonagall handed to him. He was unsure what his old professor was trying to accomplish by setting him on such a task, and he certainly didn’t want to earn his father or Remus’ ire if he was perceived to be biased in his grading. Sirius quirked a lopsided smile at Harry as he took a seat on the table next to James and Sirius. Remus already had his tawny head bowed over his parchment as he worked through his lines.

He was shuffled through the papers first, doing a quick read of each essay without looking at the writer’s name. There were discussions on the use of glamours, essays talking about Metamorphmagi, human to object transfiguration, and animagus transformations. The overwhelming majority of the papers agreed that the primary use of human transfiguration was for purposes of stealth, though he was unsurprised, and very pleased, to see that the papers on animagi talked about using the transformations to be able to “study” wild and potentially dangerous magical creatures were from James and Sirius.

He set about to start reviewing the essays in earnest. There was a paper on the use of the eye and hair color-changing spell coupled with longevity charms to increase the duration of the spell and make it harder to undo written by Lily Evans that Harry found particularly insightful. His mother, it appeared, had a knack for spell linking without the use of runic bases, and Harry was fascinated by the procedure she’d outlined, using bodily fluids such as saliva and blood as a base for the spell process meant to make adopted children fit better with their adoptive families until they’ve acclimated to the new household, and to prevent them getting bullied for looking nothing like their adoptive families. It was a masterful piece of magical work, though heavy on the Charm work and less precise on the Transfiguration. He could see why many of the professors thought Lily Evans one of the brightest minds in the sixth year class.

James’ and Sirius’ essays read like companion pieces on animagus transformations and the Care of Magical Creatures. Sirius focused on the practical purposes of studying magical creatures in their natural habitat without the interruption of human presence, while James discussed interaction with and the taming of human-averse magical creatures. Harry found great insight into his father and Sirius’ personalities in the fields of study they’d discussed in their essay.

Unsurprisingly, Remus’ essay dealt with academic purposes of human transfiguration as it was useful to professions like mind healers, who may ease particularly traumatized children by providing them diversions using partial animal transformations. Harry’s eyes flashed bright and prickled with the threat of tears for a moment. That reminded him so much of Tonks in his timeline, when she tried to distract him from his grief over first Cedric’s then Sirius’ deaths, it was physically painful.

There were a number of insidious applications of disguises discussed in the essays of a few of Harry’s dorm mates. He wasn’t judging them. The essays read like a litany of his career exploits as an Auror on field duty. He wasn’t going to get on a high horse just because these children thought it intelligent to use subterfuge and disguise for surveilling criminal activity, even though their ideas of what constituted as criminal left somewhat to be desired. Snape’s essay struck Harry as particularly hard-hitting as Snape cited obviously personal experiences of transfiguring a “boy” into random furniture to avoid aggression at home. It reminded him again that despite his anger towards his former professor, Snape was still an abused child at this point, acting on the type of violence he learned at home. He wondered whether there was even anything the Hogwarts professors, and Slughorn in particular, was doing to help at-risk children like Snape.

A furtive glance to his right at Sirius, whose brow was furrowed deeply in concentration as he hurriedly scribbled his lines, told him that the assessment he had of Snape was mostly accurate. Sirius came from a particularly troubled home life too, and Harry knew without having to see that Sirius carried scars from his home life the same as Snape, and their tendencies towards malicious mischief, especially against each other, spoke volumes of learned behaviors against antagonizing forces. The difference was that Snape seemed to revel in his maliciousness, while Sirius passed his off as mischief merry-making.

He had a newfound respect for McGonagall by the time he turned in the papers he’d graded. Not only did he understand the children of this era better, so that he could accurately assess and gauge how to respond to their aspirations (deter the junior Death Eaters from becoming violent with their beliefs; temper the righteous indignation of the other students over perceived slights) to steer those he knew away from Voldemort. She’d also given him an opportunity to get to know his parents in a manner he may never have experienced even by the miracle that he actually managed to get close to them in this timeline.

The other three had already finished their lines. Harry could see Sirius lurking at the doorway to the classroom with James hissing at him for them to make their quick getaway before McGonagall changed her mind. Harry wanted to signal for Sirius to go on, but McGonagall was looking at him meaningfully.

“I expect you’ll make good use of the insights you’ve gotten from these essays, Mr Patter,” she told him. Harry nodded.

“Thanks, Professor. I think I know what to do with it.”

She inclined her head. “Keep it in mind when dealing with Mr Snape and Mr Black.” The corner of her lips twitched as if she knew exactly what Harry had been up to with Sirius, and he blushed hotly.

“Er, right. I’m going now. Quidditch practice…” he trailed off, even though there was no way he was going out to the pitch when Sirius was just outside the classroom, waiting for him to finish up.

“Oh no, it’s the Prongs clone,” Remus moaned knowingly as Harry emerged from the Transfiguration classroom, as if Harry had been a very common topic of conversation among them, so common in fact that Sirius was now red-cheeked and smiling that strained mortified smile of a person who’d been teased mercilessly over his attraction to a boy from another rival House.

“Shut it, Moony,” he muttered, stepping on Remus’ foot meaningfully. Harry found the way he was so flustered with his schoolboy attraction to Harry utterly endearing. “Now that Harry’s here, we need to talk.”

James scowled at Harry suspiciously. “Don’t you have Quidditch practice now? Thought I saw your friends out on the pitch.”

Harry opened his mouth to deny that he was friends with any of the people on the team, people whom had targeted the Marauders, probably especially Remus, with pranks and insults, and found that he couldn’t. He did want to be friends, at least with some of them. He didn’t think any of them were so unredeemable at this point in their lives that he’d just cast them aside. He shoved his hands in his robe pockets, his right hand fingering the Time Turner.

“I’ll join them later. Sirius?”

Sirius, if possible, turned even redder. “Yeah, er.” He shook off James’ hand clutched on the sleeve of his robe and hurried over to Harry’s side. “Well, er. Prongs, Moony, this is my—what do I call you exactly?”

Harry was enjoying himself too much to even give any thought to what he and Sirius might actually be to each other. “I dunno. Boyfriends?”

“Does that make it awkward that you were married before, with kids?” Sirius wondered aloud. Harry snorted. He supposed he should have expected that from a teenager.

“Married?!” James’ eyes bugged out.

“Kids?!” Remus appeared hopelessly lost.

Harry chuckled. “Okay, I think we need to sit down for this.”

He took them to the Room of Requirement, because he couldn’t think of any place else that he wouldn’t be spotted by his house mates skiving on Quidditch practice. It wasn’t like anyone would know any better if Harry used the Time Turner, and anyway, if Sirius felt he needed to tell his friends about Harry, where he was from, what was in store for them in the future, well, Harry wasn’t going to stop him.

“Padfoot, there’s nothing here,” James complained when they reached the seventh floor corridor.

“Wait,” Harry said, stopping Sirius from conjuring the room. “I’ll do it.”

He hoped he wouldn’t get the dead room after the Fiendfyre again as the door appeared, and he was gratified to find that the room he got resembled the Gryffindor common room as he remembered it. James’ and Remus’ eyes were shining as the two of them followed Harry and Sirius in.

“It looks exactly like—“

James rounded on Harry suspiciously. “Have you been sneaking into our common room, snake?”

Harry scratched the back of his head sheepishly, his hair standing on end, exactly the same way as his father’s. “Er, yeah, about that…”

“Harry’s from the future,” Sirius interrupted, dropping the bombshell without preamble. He held his hand up before the questions could erupt any further. “He used a Time Turner to get here, although there’s a bit of esoteric death magic in play and he didn’t exactly intend to get here, just that he is.”

Harry frowned. Death magic? When did that happen? He wasn’t going to question Sirius, though. He had far too many gaps in his memories to remember any of the details that brought him to 1977 in the first place.

James and Remus looked like they didn’t know where to start, and Sirius looked up to Harry who gestured a “have at it” at the three of them.

“So, Prongs, before you start hexing over me consorting with the enemy, this here is Harry Potter. He’s your son, from the future.”

* * *

By the time Harry and Sirius had gotten the story out of Harry’s timeline, the two of them finding the diadem, it attacking Sirius, and how he’d ended up in the hospital (harry wanted to edit out the fact that Sirius had died in the Room of Hidden Things, but Sirius was brutal in his bluntness about facing the facts, a complete turnabout from his quiet confession to Harry earlier that he didn’t know how to tell his friends about the more difficult parts of the future as he’d seen it), he was tired and hoarse and sleepy. But James has looking at him with wonder now, and Remus with thoughtful consideration.

“I have a son, Pads! I have a son with Lily!”

Remus and Sirius exchanged long-suffering glances. Trust James to fixate on the fact that he’d in fact gotten his girl and had a baby with her to boot.

“So Harry saved you from a… what was it called? Whore crucks?” Remus muttered.

Sirius nodded. He hadn’t known he’d died and Harry was keeping that bit of information to himself, Sirius knew that he’d just been knocked out and that he’d awoken only when Harry had kissed him.

“Must’ve been awful, getting stuck in a vision where rocks fell and pretty much everyone died,” James commented, shaking his head over the massive death toll of the end of the war and the sort of horror Sirius must have experienced witnessing it through the diadem.

“But woken with a kiss?” Remus grinned. “You’re just an everyday Disney princess, aren’t you, Pads?”

James and Sirius appeared lost at the Muggle reference, but Harry barked out a laugh he hadn’t expected. Remus was _funny_! He had a hard time reconciling this teasing, smiling Remus with the sad-faced shabby professor he remembered from his childhood.

All three of the boys were nothing like he’d expected. He’d thought that Sirius would be the wild, slightly off-kilter, impetuous one with the irreverent sense of humor, and instead, he got a thoughtful, almost shy boy who blushed whenever they kissed. He still had a bit of the Sirius that Harry recalled, some of the mad glint of energy swirling about him, and the steadfast loyalty to his friends, but he wasn’t yet that unthinking man blinded by grief and rage, a man who’d left a baby to a half-giant to chase after the friend who’d betrayed him. Remus, on the other hand, was confident, assertive, and funny in ways Harry didn’t think his former professor could ever have been. James was smart and loyal and asked all of the right questions that pushed the narrative of Harry Potter’s life in directions Harry hadn’t even thought of. He’d asked penetrating questions about Harry’s Horcrux hunt and the Deathly Hallows and Voldemort’s resurrection that Harry alternately felt like he’d been ridiculously unprepared for life in the Wizarding World and notoriously out of his depth in dealing with an obviously precocious child.

Remus bit his lip and considered Harry for a long moment. “So what are you planning now? I’m guessing you feel like you _have_ to do something about You-Know-Who now that you’re out of your own timeline and can… I don’t know, fix all the wonky magic that caused you to come here in the first place.”

Harry shrugged. “I have to, Moony.” And was he ever so thankful that he could call Remus by his nickname now without feeling like he was overstepping his welcome with these teenage Marauders. James and Remus had accepted his story after he’d laid out the Time Turner and the diadem in front of them. “Otherwise, James is going to die, and Sirius is going to Azkaban, and you’re going to… well, you’re going to live in abject poverty for fifteen years before you die in yet another war, aren’t you?”

“Is it weird to call me by my name instead of dad?” James wondered in a complete tangent.

Harry blushed, abashed. “I didn’t think you’d like some old person stuck in a boy’s body to be calling you dad.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t mind it as long as you call Evans ‘mum’.” He grinned.

Harry shook his head, face darkening. “We’re not telling her any of this. I—I wouldn’t have told you three, if Sirius hadn’t been attacked by the Horcrux.”

“A fortuitous turn of events, if there ever was one,” Sirius affirmed, making Harry scowl even darker, which he ignored blithely and pressed a smack to his cheek.

“Ew, can you not mack with my son in front of me, you lecher!” James exclaimed.

“It is a bit disturbing,” Remus agreed. “You’re his godfather.”

Sirius made a face. “Not yet, I’m not.” He pointed an accusing finger at James. “And you’re not going to make me one with this one. I’ll accept any other future sproglet you make with Evans, but Harry’s mine.”

The three boys laughed. Harry shook his head. Sometimes he had to question why he even agreed to be surrounded by teenagers.

When they’d sobered, Remus asked him, “So, you plan on hunting these things? The Horcruxes?” He shuddered as if the very word made him feel ill, and Harry couldn’t agree more, having read the book on the making of them together with Hermione so many years back.

“Yeah, although I suppose my more immediate need is to find a way to get rid of the one I’ve found already.” All four of them stared at the diadem on the low table in front of the couch they occupied. Harry could see the Dark magic swirling around the little crown. “I’m afraid the magic in it might start corrupting me if I keep it on my person all the time. It’s happened before in my timeline, with the locket.”

“Have you thought about… I don’t know, Transfiguring it into a form that’s easier to destroy than metal?” James asked as he stared at the inconspicuous container of Voldemort’s soul. “Pity you can’t use any counter-curses on it. The Diadem is a priceless artifact of Hogwarts that really ought to be preserved.”

“I had the feeling that’s what Voldemort was going for,” Harry sighed. “I haven’t tried Transfiguring it yet, but from what I’ve managed to find on it before, the form of the container needs to be completely destroyed to kill the soul fragment within.”

“Hmm,” James said noncommittally. “We’ll think of some way to help you. We were planning to join up with Professor Dumbledore after school anyway. He’s talked to us before, about a resistance group against Voldemort.”

“Maybe Transfigure the form into another that changes the state of matter when destroyed,” Sirius mused, still thinking about the Horcruxes. “Like wood with fire turning to ash. Metal can’t be completely destroyed with regular fire, since it’s still metal when it melts.”

“We can look it up in the library,” Remus added.

Harry shook his head. “No. This is… I know you want to help me, but I don’t want you to have to wade through the sort of books I’ve read on this. It’s not right, and it’s definitely not the sort of thing you want to waste any of your free time with. I’ll figure it out.”

“We’ll help you look for the others though,” Sirius said earnestly.

Harry sighed. He knew he wasn’t going to win this argument for now, especially when Sirius turned the pretty eyes and soft touches on him. He just went completely weak for him. “We’ll see. I don’t even know if any of them are in the same hiding places Voldemort used before. There’s so much I don’t know of how the first war had gone, from the time the three of you finished school to the time it ended. I don’t know the first place to begin.”

Sirius wouldn’t accept it, but the whisper of his fingers to Harry’s cheek stopped him from arguing his point any further. “We can look into your check list at least. Some of us _are_ related to the people on your list.”

“Don’t see you being on Bellatrix’s good side enough to ask her if You-Know-Who left her a piece of his soul now, are we?” Remus muttered, but he acknowledged that he wanted to be a part of this adventure. Harry remembered how Remus was almost willing to give up his family so that he could join Harry in hunting the Horcruxes in his timeline and felt his chest ache again. He wished he could spare them the horrors of what he’d seen in the war, but to the three of them, the hunt and the research to destroy the Horcruxes was still a teenage lark, an adventure to be had with an impossibility from their futures.

Presently, Remus stood up, and then hauled James and Sirius with him. “We should all get going. Curfew’s going to start soon, and I’m a prefect.” He made a face. “I still have to make rounds, and the three of you could use a day without another detention for being out of the common rooms.”

Harry yawned and grabbed the Time Turner and the diadem and shoved them in his pockets. “Yeah, no. I still have to go to Quidditch practice.”

James stared at him wistfully. “Wish I could do the same for my team, but ah, I supposed bed sounds nice after today.” He grinned at Harry and clapped his shoulder. “You’ve just given me the hope I needed to continue my pursuit of Evans. I can’t believe I didn’t recognize her eyes on you.”

“Oh yeah,” Sirius added. “Your eyes do look a lot like Evans’ now that it isn’t all weird and gloomy and sinister-looking.”

Harry gaped. “Really?” He’d had the glowing eyes as part of his unnatural magic for so long, he’d almost forgotten what he looked like without it. What did it mean exactly? His changing magic and now the absence of the physical manifestations of the overpowered core? He needed time to figure it out some more, but for now, he still had two hours of Quidditch to go to.

Sirius kissed Harry goodbye outside the Room of Requirement, to the chorus of retching noises James and Remus made jokingly behind them, and the four of them parted ways with Harry wondering now that the three Marauders knew of his secrets, if this would be enough to change the past that he came from, if maybe this wouldn’t result in Peter’s betrayal, even if Harry never got to finish the brewing war before it started.

It wasn’t something that he could quite validate, having no tether back to the future, so he put it out of his mind and went back to the Room of Requirement to use the Time Turner.

A few days later, Harry was in the Gryffindor common room replica of the Room of Requirement again, this time with only Remus for company. James and Sirius had gone to the Gryffindor Quidditch practice immediately after detention. The four of them had talked every night after that on how to deal with the diadem, with no clear agreement. Sirius thought that the glimpse of Harry’s past that he saw with the Fiendfyre was the only sure way, without a means to get basilisk venom. James still wanted to try Transfiguring the diadem so they didn’t need to dabble with Dark magic, Remus wanted to research in the library’s restricted section, and Harry wanted none of them anywhere near it for fear that the Horcrux might have a backlash the way the Gaunt ring had attacked Dumbledore with a wasting curse in Harry’s timeline.

With only Remus for company now, they’d put off discussing the Horcrux, and talked about the Remus Harry had known instead. He seemed endlessly fascinated that he had somehow managed to out-live all of his friends, despite his werewolf affliction almost guaranteeing that his life expectancy would be cut drastically short. Even with the other three Marauders as animagi accompanying him during the full moon to run in the forest, thus keeping the wolf from attacking itself, the transformation itself was violent and gruesome enough that it would eventually take a toll on Remus’ body until he was too weak to sustain it.

“There’s always Wolfsbane potion,” Harry told him. “I remember Sirius from my time told me since Snape started brewing it for you, that the transformations are a lot less violent. It’s not really a cure, but you still get to keep your awareness all throughout. Keeps you from being dangerous on the full moons, and I suppose, less inclined to tear humans to shreds when anyone wanders too close.”

Remus sighed. “A pity it’s lost to the ethers then. I doubt it would be invented for a few more years yet.”

“Oh, yeah, about that.” He grinned. He’d taken to bringing a book bag since he’d started the project in Slughorn’s Study Room 6. He didn’t want to have the diadem’s magic contaminating any of the potion ingredients he shuttled from Slughorn’s supply cabinets to the brewing room he used. Now, it was especially useful as he procured the large flask from his bag and presented it to Remus with a flourish.

“Is that—?”

“Yep,” Harry said excitedly, as Remus took the flask, opened it, and made a face at the smell of the smoking blue liquid inside. “I can make it from memory. Andromeda Tonks and I had to, in case Teddy, that’s your son in the future—with Nymphadora Tonks, she’s Sirius’ cousin—ever exhibited signs of becoming a werewolf too. You drink a goblet of it for a week before the full moon, and voila! Relieved symptoms of lycanthropy.”

Remus closed the flask, turning his back to put it away into his own book bag. When he turned back to Harry, his eyes were shining with unshed tears. “You—“ He choked on his words for a moment, and Harry tactfully remained quiet while he mastered his feelings. “I can’t believe anyone would do this for me.”

Harry shrugged. “Remus, I’m not the first person to have been kind to you. James and Sirius, and even Peter, I assume, all became animagi to keep you company.”

Remus seemed to have lost his fight and one lone tear spilled out from the corner of his eye. “I know, and I didn’t think it would happen, but… they’re my friends, and you don’t even know me.”

“I _do_ know you. I know Remus Lupin, the quiet but kind teacher who saw me, this lonely boy who wasn’t evenallowed to go to Hogsmeade because my aunt and uncle wouldn’t allow me to have any sort of fun or enjoyment in my life, and you told me about my parents, and taught me how to cast a Patronus.” He reached out, wiped the tear away. Remus’ eyes were overbright. “You’re not him yet, that brave and honest and noble man that I knew, but you will be. And I’ll be glad to have known you as that man, and as the boy you are now.”

He smiled when Remus hiccoughed. “I don’t think any of you realize how incredibly surreal it is for me to even be able to meet you like this. In the timeline I left behind, you have all been gone for decades. I’d never even met my dad; I didn’t have any memories of him at all. And now, I get to talk to the three of you, and play Quidditch with—or against—James and Sirius, and it’s so surreal, but it’s more than what I could have ever wanted, especially after how own world was torn apart in my timeline, so now, you _should_ expect me to do this for you, because it’s what I would have done for the you in my timeline, if I could have.”

He would have had more to say, but the door suddenly burst open letting in a freshly showered James and Sirius who appeared to be in the middle of an argument, and Sirius noticed Harry still holding Remus’ face.

“Oi, what’s all this about?” he demanded, throwing himself between them to land a noisy smack on Harry’s face.

Remus let out a watery laugh and smiled back at Harry. “I suppose I should expect it now that you’ve become an honorary Marauder by virtue of being _this_ git’s boyfriend.”

“And godson!” James chimed in, still vaguely horrified that Harry, his son from the future, and Sirius, his best friend who he’d apparently chosen as Harry’s godfather, were now sucking each other’s faces. “This is so inappropriate.”

Sirius made a face. “Shut it, Prongs. There’s nothing wrong with it; Harry and I aren’t related at least.”

“You so are! Aunt Dorea’s a Black,” James retorted petulantly.

“That just makes your cousin Abraham related to Bellatrix by marriage.” Sirius grinned. “Not you or me.”

“Ugh, I can’t imagine being cousins by marriage with _your_ cousin,” James shuddered, and turned to Harry. “Was she also as weird as in your timeline?”

Harry shook his head and eyed Sirius, who subsided from his petty argument with James instantly. “Yeah. She wasn’t just weird. She was completely crazy. Fifteen years in Azkaban and all. She killed Sirius.”

“Fuck,” James breathed. He turned to his best friend and put an arm around Sirius’ shoulders, which had slumped at Harry’s admission. “Sorry mate. I’ll make sure that never happens.”

“It won’t,” Harry stated with conviction. “I won’t let it.”

Sirius sighed and rubbed his face tiredly. “No use speculating about that now. She’s not even married to Lestrange’s brother yet, although Dromeda said there’s already been an announcement of engagement in the papers before summer ended.” He made a face. “Let’s not talk about her. Talking about my family gives me the creeps.”

Remus sighed dramatically. “As opposed to molesting your godson when our backs are turned, I suppose.”

“I wasn’t—Harry, tell Moony everything we’ve done is utterly, unequivocally consensual,” Sirius demanded imperiously.

Harry grinned at that, but he turned to James instead of Remus with the most earnest expression he could muster without actually cracking up. “Dad, I promise I’m not having sex with your best friend.”

James and Remus pelted him with pillows, groaning loudly and vociferously about revealing too much information. Harry laughed and told them they should be thankful that he hadn’t said that he wasn’t sleeping with the family dog, and in the midst of all three boys suddenly attacking him with more pillows than he could count, for the first time since he’d arrived in this timeline, he realized that he was happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Goes without saying that I do not necessarily believe any of the insights presented in this chapter, especially Lily's essay on Human Transfiguration. No one should have to look like anyone else just to fit in, but realize that this is the 70s and that people believed things differently then from now. Note that Harry thought the _magic_ was masterful, not the reasoning. I think we should stop expecting that protagonists in this story should have no flaws. I didn't like how in the books, Harry became disillusioned when he learned that his father was actually human and had flaws, but the same was never illustrated with his mother. I want to write human beings in my story, not caricatures of fairy tale characters, so insights you might see presented about their personalities may be well-meaning but flawed, or vicious but righteous, and what else have you. This is a story, not a political or social justice statement, so please don't misconstrue what goes on in the story for my own beliefs. Death of the Author applies.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a bit of plot and a bit of fluff in this chapter, as well as a break in Harry's narration. Didn't think it would work with what I wanted to happen.

The thing with teaching in school that didn’t deal with mastery was that there was very little opportunity to play with the sort of esoteric magics that got a person published in the more prestigious academic publications discussing new discoveries in in the nature of magic as it related to the sort of arcane fields of study such as the fabric of existence, Time, Love, Death, all things which the Department of Mysteries currently held a monopoly in wizarding Britain. And the Department of Mysteries guarded these secrets jealously. Sure, there were things that NEWT classes such as Curse-Breaking and Transfiguration and Potions that touched on these subjects. To wit:

  1. Curse-breaking dealt across different fields of study, but to truly dive deep, one needed to study the Dark Arts (which was a thing of the distant past in Hogwarts);
  2. Conjuration and Vanishment dealt with the fabric of existence and were some of the more advanced Transfiguration that was taught at the NEWT levels, but also tightly controlled by the incumbent instructor, Minerva McGonagall, who was one of the foremost academics in the particular branch of magic;
  3. Time Reversals and Divination were far too wibbly wobbly subjects to be taken seriously, not the least because true Seers and Time Travelers were next to impossible to come by; and
  4. Distilled Love and Death in the form of Potions like Amortentia and the Draught of Living Death were nothing more than facsimiles of the true thing. They were things that could not be studied in physicality and to experiment with them at best led to the researcher either actually dying, or at worst, the creation of creatures such as dementors, which fed on the absence of Love and reveled in Death.



Saul Croaker thought he’d finally had his break in his academic career with the appearance of a strange boy who talked like a man, who’d seen an impossible future, and who flitted between flirting with the Dark Arts and exhibiting such a profound sense of Love for the miserable population of mindless, self-absorbed sheep that populated wizarding Britain that he was willing to soldier on alone, even when told by better-learned wizards such as Saul himself that there was no point in opposing the gathering forces of a self-styled lord who was interested more in the subjugation of wizardkind than in the furtherance of magic. Harry Potter ticked off all the points he needed for a subject of intense study: his magic leaned towards the Dark Arts but he fought the innate attraction to it, he didn’t age suggesting a mastery of Transfiguration and an unfathomable understanding of Time, and he’d survived death not once, but three times if the story he told Slughorn and Dumbledore was to be believed: first in his childhood in 1981, again in this apocalyptic future called the Battle of Hogwarts, and lastly, in the use of the Time Turner, where he’d appeared in a time and place where his past self was _already_ dead.

The thing was, for all the magical impossibilities that the Harry Potter conundrum seemed to present, the boy himself didn’t appear to be interested in anything more than reliving his childhood. He went to his classes, talked with his friends in Slytherin house, even forged an impossible friendship with three of the four troublemakers of Gryffindor house, and played Quidditch. And nothing else. It seemed Harry Potter had no interest in pursuing anything more than the tiresome monotony of day-to-day Hogwarts life and Saul couldn’t abide by it when Harry Potter presented such a fascinating piece of magical specimen.

He wished the boy would approach him already on the side project he’d mentioned on his first day in Curse-breaking class, but he appeared no more interested in pursuing academic interests before than he did now. If anything, the boy appeared to have completely forgotten what it was he was meant to do where he’d arrived. There’d been no further talk of You-Know-Who, no discussions with any of the faculty on premises about mounting any sort of resistance, even though Saul knew Dumbledore was embroiled in one such resistance movement, even though the old Headmaster did his best to appear mild and harmless and unsuspecting. Harry Potter only went about his day playing the charming, likable sixth year Quidditch jock.

He was fortunate that there were other avenues of exploration. His tenure with Hogwarts felt as if it had eaten a good chunk of his youth and he was ready to move on to grander things, but a research grant from the Ministry was next to impossible as Minister Minchum was more interested in funding Azkaban to hold supporters of You-Know-Who than in the discovery of magics that could put a stop to his rise to power, so the only option left for ambitious and enterprising researchers such as Saul was the Department of Mysteries, and that was a position he’d never be able to achieve if he wasn’t published with prestige.

Saul was practical in his ambitions, so he made sure to spend time with the right people. Potter was mistaken in his belief that people were doing nothing to fight against You-Know-Who, and Saul was one such person. He’d lied when he said he had no connections to any of You-Know-Who’s people. It wasn’t hard to find who they were. Potter himself slept in a dorm where four of the five other boys were children of You-Know-Who’s sympathizers. And Saul knew how to appeal to these people, having come from Slytherin House himself.

Abraxas Malfoy fancied himself a learned man in a position of prestige. The Malfoy family was so filthy rich, they could buy out the devil for a plot of land in Hell. The rumor on the Wizengamot floor was that only Arcturus Black, at whose feet the goblins of Gringotts hung on in worshipful attendance, was richer, but then Arcturus Black _was_ probably the devil himself, for how ruthless the man was in business, politics, and magic. He was an unreachable goal, but Saul knew Abraxas from his long tenure on the Hogwarts teaching staff.

The Malfoy lord held many a banquet throughout the year. Saul wasn’t important enough to be invited to all of them, but in the last sit-down meeting with the Board of Governors before the end of summer, Abraxas had hosted the Board and the faculty of Hogwarts at Malfoy Manor. It was a pity Dumbledore hadn’t managed to stay for long in that meeting—Hogwarts could have used the favor of the Board for some much needed academic reform in the Hogwarts curriculum, in Saul’s opinion, but there’d been news that Edgar Bones had been murdered in his home with his wife and children, and that Death Eaters were suspected of the crime. Edgar’s sister, Amelia, had called on the old headmaster, and he, Minerva, and Filius had swiftly taken their leave.

Saul supposed it worked out just as well, for he was certain Abraxas would not have granted him any favors if Albus had been in attendance the entire evening, since Dumbledore did not approve of his staff receiving gifts from anyone on the Board, and especially not from parents of any of their students.

He’d truly intended to only petition Malfoy for a research grant. Malfoy had an interest in the Curse-breaking expedition Gringotts had been sending to Egypt, an expedition funded in full by the coffers of the Black family. Malfoy wanted a piece of the action, thinking it more a lucrative business venture than the elf-made wine his family had capitalized on, and Saul thought it would have been mutually beneficial if he could offer consultancy to the Curse Breakers of Gringotts provided someone could fund his joining the expedition.

Instead, the petty lord offered him an entirely different project, one which Saul was endlessly fascinated with once he discovered what it was and who the project belonged to.

The small black notebook that lay on his desk now seemed innocuous, but Saul knew better than most that the ordinary could host magic that was both great and terrifying (look at Harry Potter's existence, for example), and he was certain this notebook presented an object of true horror. What Abraxas didn’t know when he’d presented Saul with it and asked him to find out what its connection was with the fabled Chamber of Secrets was that Saul knew better than most the origins of this little notebook. He’d seen it toted around by another precocious sixth year boy when he’d been a seventh year in Slytherin.

What many people didn’t know was that Saul was one of the few people who knew the origins of the self-styled Lord Voldemort. Knew of his origins, but did not join the fanatics that followed him, because he’d seen and recognized the face of that boy in the burned and blurred visage of the Daily Prophet’s coverage of You-Know-Who.

And so he’d accepted the notebook from Abraxas, with fervent promises of discovering its secrets. He hid it in a secret compartment, magically locked to open only with a drop of his blood, in his desk drawer in his office. He’d worked on discovering the intricate spellwork that hid the notebook’s secrets, and wondered truly, if that boy he remembered from his days in Hogwarts had ever been connected with that Muggleborn girl’s death in 1943. It had been sensational news at the time and people gossiped endlessly, for who could have expected such a death in Hogwarts, arguably the safest place place in all of wizarding Britain? If he thought about it now, it seemed like a cover-up of epic proportions to dismiss the half-giant Gryffindor boy from Hogwarts for that girl’s death. Hagrid didn’t seem like he was intelligent enough to have had the wherewithal to even _know_ about the Chamber of Secrets, much less open it, then and certainly not now.

If Abraxas suspected this inconspicuous bundle of cheap leather and parchment had anything to do with the Chamber, then Saul was deadly certain that You-Know-Who had been the true culprit. But so far, no spell of his had ever worked at discovering the secrets hidden between the notebook’s empty pages. There were no curses he could detect, no charm work to undo, even though the notebook fairly reeked of Dark magic.

No matter though. It was All Hallows tomorrow. The rest of the faculty were too busy preparing for the All Hallows Banquet Ball, and the students were stirred up in the frenzy of a school-wide party. Saul had time to dedicate to his own side project.

He opened a page at random, dipped his quill in ink and wrote in his slanted script:

_Hello, Tom._

* * *

Harry suspected if Halloween in his days in Hogwarts had ever been a fancy costume party instead of just a nice dinner banquet, he would not have enjoyed his school life half as much as he actually had. For one thing, fancy parties inevitably meant dancing, and Harry’s hand-to-eye-to-feet coordination, which always served him particularly well in duelling, dissolved into absolute nothingness in the face of a dance partner. He hadn’t _quite_ forgotten how mortifying the Yule Ball had been in his fourth year, during the Triwizard Tournament, and he had no intention of letting Sirius know decades after that particular blip in his life that he truly wished were erased from his memory that he still had all the grace of a drunken spider monkey hopped up on gillyweed.

It absolutely did not help his case that Sirius already had a date to the party. A date who was a girl. A girl who was a redhead, and looked suspiciously like Harry’s ex-wife. James had laughingly told him the story about how Mafalda Prewett had tricked the infamous Gryffindor bad boy into taking her out to the All Hallows Ball by telling Sirius she was one of the only people in the entirety of the school that Sirius wasn’t related to. Sirius had counted out the three Muggleborns he knew (Lily Evans was out; James would kill him if he even tried. Ted Tonks was a boy and Sirius was loathe to disclose his orientation until Harry came along apparently. And Mary Cattermole was too depressed after her boyfriend, Philip Bones, died in the Death Eater attack over the summer).

He’d tried to discover if he was related to Marlene McKinnon (third cousin), Dorcas Meadowes (not related, but apparently still actually blood-related—her great grandmother had been struck off the Black family tree), Hestia Jones (related through the Rosiers, so something like cousin by marriage), Emmeline Vance (second cousin once removed; and anyway, she was Remus’ date and Remus was not cool with sharing), Pandora Pyrites (third cousin once removed, also too weird and apparently dating Xeno Lovegood, which was not a good look for Sirius). It seemed Sirius was related to nearly half the students in the school.

When Mafalda had approached him, she’d reasoned she was a cousin of Fab and Gid on their father’s side. Sirius took that to mean that this was the side not related to the Blacks, and it was only after he’d finally agreed that he found out that she was in fact more closely related to him than any of the other girls he’d considered asking--her mother was Lucretia Black, who was Sirius’ dad’s sister.

Sirius was vaguely appalled that the Black features were so completely erased in this girl. Gone were the sleek black hair, the heavy lidded sleet blue or storm grey eyes, the slim, lithe build, and that instinctive animal grace that seemed inborn in all of the Black children. Mafalda had carrot red hair, more freckles than there were stars in the sky, and chocolate brown eyes. She was not lithely graceful so much as youthful and coltish, and she had the effervescence of personality that reminded Harry of how Ginny had been in Harry’s own sixth year.

Harry liked her on sight, which of course meant Sirius despised the very air she breathed, though he was apparently too well-bred to let any of his displeasure show with either Harry or his own unsuspecting cousin. Remus spent half the evening nearly drowning in his pumpkin juice laughing at Sirius every time his eyebrow so much as ticked whenever Mafalda tried to have a conversation with Harry.

The costumes were a bit ridiculous too. Harry was quite gratified at least that a costume party did not mean dress robes, even though a fair number of people _were_ in dress robes, but that was one of the only things that made the evening marginally pleasant. James did _not_ have a date because Lily Evans, who was warming a bit to him now, was still too wary to spend more time with him than it took to speak two sentences, so he was miserable as he watched Lily dance with Gary Stretton, a seventh year Ravenclaw, who apparently knew her from the Slug Club.

Harry himself did not have a date either, because balls were rubbish, and he was not interested in subjecting a partner, male or female, to the disaster that was his dancing. And anyway, he’d thought he’d be spending the evening with Sirius, but with the Ginny-clone on Sirius’ arm, he supposed that just wasn’t in the cards.

So he sat miserably at one of the small tables for four with a miserable James, an extremely put-out Sirius, and a completely clueless Mafalda. Remus had finally gone to indulge his own date with a dance. Peter, who had no date of his own, was hovering around the punch table, hoping to ask Dorcas Meadowes for a dance anyway.

When Sirius turned down Mafalda’s third request to dance because he wanted to sit with Harry instead, she finally stood up. “You’re such a wet blanket! Mother told me you would be after making so much trouble for Uncle Orion!”

Sirius snorted but continued only to stare off sullenly into space.

“And what even are these rags you’re wearing, Sirius! They’re hardly appropriate for a public appearance!”

Because of course Sirius would be dressed as Sid Vicious from the Sex Pistols. He was one of the few people in the Great Hall now dressed in muggle clothing, Harry, Lily and Ted Tonks being the others. Harry had gotten flack from his roommates for his funny trousers (he hadn’t known that cigarette jeans were fashionable in the seventies and he felt oddly exposed and Rosier, who was in fact wearing a fancy collared dress robe, had asked him why he would go out of the dorms wearing his underthings, to which Harry had remarked that they were far too itchy at the crotch to have imagined life as anyone’s “underthings” and who even said “underthings” with a straight face, and how he was never going to ask Remus for help to buy him clothes from a Muggle store ever again), but Sirius was a goddamn vision in leather trousers and a ripped Union Jack shirt, his arms bare and pale and lithe and, fuck these jeans weren’t doing Harry any favors hiding his boner.

“You and Patter and that Hufflepuff boy with his rude looking printed trousers,” Mafalda continued to rant. “Who wears printed trousers, I ask you? Not wizards of any good breeding, that’s who!”

Privately, Harry thought Ted Tonks’ colorful houndstooth polyester jacket and trousers suit made him look a bit like John Travolta at the ending of _Grease_ , and therefore must be the height of 70s Muggle fashion. If anything, they looked leagues more comfortable than Harry’s itchy-at-the-crotch-two-sizes-too-small-and-leave-nothing-to-the-imagination bollock-squashing jeans. And Sirius, of course, looked like sex on two legs in full 70s punk regalia.

“You two aren’t even Muggleborn! Look at Lily! She’s wearing sensible _robes_. Fashion robes, to be sure, with all of that twinkle, but she’s dressed appropriately to be seen in public at least.” Mafalda stood up and shook her head snottily. Harry thought she must have been joking because Lily was _not_ actually wearing robes. She’d dressed in David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust outfit and simply put a glittery cape on to make the costume look less revealing than it would have been without.

“Mafalda,” Harry interrupted with a put upon sigh, “If you’re so offended by Sirius’ appearance, there’s a dozen other blokes in the hall to dance and be seen with. No one asked you to sit with us.”

Mafalda looked scandalized at the suggestion that he leave her date, even though said date looked as if he would gladly be rid of her presence. She glared down at Sirius, who affected his best devil-may-care expression and harrumphed.

“Maybe I will, but you can be sure Aunt Walburga will be hearing about this!” And then she stomped away.

James heaved a relieved sigh. “Fucking finally.” He turned to Sirius. “How can you stand her? She’s even worse than Narcissa and Regulus and Andromeda put together.”

Sirius shook his head. “Hey, no one can be worse than Cissy when she’s in her party shoes.” The three of them looked to the dance floor where Narcissa, in a voluminous crushed velvet dress that may have been fashionable in the Elizabethan era, danced with Lucius, the two of them the very picture of Pureblood propriety. Harry had to agree. The old-fashioned clothes, with all of the ruffles and velvet and high collars just looked so suffocating, and he wasn’t even wearing them. Behind them, a red-haired boy in extremely old-fashioned dress robes with what looked to be moth-eaten lace hanging out of the sleeve cuffs, danced with a girl with frizzy brown hair.

Harry frowned, nudging James and nodding towards the oddly dressed pair. They were startlingly familiar. “Do you know them?”

“Huh?” James asked distractedly. “Who?”

Harry went to point at the couple, who looked to both be in fourth of fifth year, judging by their appearance, but they were both gone. He shook his head absently. He _couldn’t_ have just seen Ron and Hermione as he remembered them both after the Yule Ball, when Hermione’s hair finally overpowered the Sleekeazy she’d used to tame it. They weren’t even born yet in this time. He shook his head again. Maybe someone had spiked the pumpkin juice and he was starting to see things, though he’d never quite thought himself such a lightweight where drinking was concerned. At the height of his and Ginny’s divorce, he’d been drinking just as much as her, and between the two of them, had polished off the stores of fine spirits in the Grimmauld Place cellar.

He sighed and shook his head again and resumed watching the throng of students mingling and dancing and occasionally, stopping at the tables to eat and drink. “Was that cousin of yours always that shrill? Only she reminded me of my ex-wife after we got divorced. She would always come screaming hell and high water at the DoM whenever I failed to sign off on this or that portion of the alimony.”

Sirius scowled. “That better not be the reason you were spending so much time engaging my cousin in conversation all evening.”

Harry put up his hands placatingly. “Hey, I thought you were being rude to her. I didn’t know she’d turn into an actual harpy with enough provocation, or that she’d attack me along with you. Come to think of it, that does sound a lot like Ginny when she got mad…”

James nudged him with his elbows and darted meaningful eyes at where Sirius’ expression had grown impossibly stormier at the mention of Harry’s ex-wife’s name. They’d so far avoided talking about the fact that Harry actually came from a life where he’d been married and had children before, and Sirius, like any other possessive teenager, resented the idea that he was not Harry’s first love (as he’d assured Harry that _he_ was, not any of the other girls he’d strung along in an effort to pretend to be straight), and did not take kindly to any mentions of his competition, even though said competition was a) already dead in another timeline, and b) divorced from Harry and good riddance.

Harry didn’t like thinking ill of the dead, but Ginny had been close to insufferable by the time they got divorced. He knew she’d been deeply aggrieved over their son’s death and had taken it out on him whenever she descended in one of her drunken fits, but Harry had lost a son at the time too, and he wasn’t going around drowning his sorrows in Firewhiskey and neglecting his remaining children every opportunity he got (just, on the occasion when the depression got to be a bit much). Of course, given that he’d retreated into the DoM, he did eventually end up neglecting his other two children, and Ginny eventually cleaned up her act. Pity all of them had to die, but by this point in Harry’s life, he’d mostly learned to live with the grief and loss, and Ginny and Jamie, and Albus and Lily Luna all felt like a terrifying but distant memory.

“Stop thinking about her,” Sirius muttered, sullen and petulant, and still inappropriately desirable with his pouting lips and stormy eyes.

“I’m not,” Harry said, even though he actually was.

“Children,” James interjected before a fight could escalate. “Stop sniping and help me think if a way to ask Evans for a dance without her partner getting suspicious.”

Harry looked oddly at his father. “People get mad if you danced with their dates? What sort of medieval rubbish is this?”

Sirius actually laughed at him. “Harry, it’s not considered good form to cut in a dance, especially if the dance partners appear to be enjoying themselves. James is just being a proper Pureblood about it.”

“Well, don’t these dances have one of those… er spin and change partners sort of moves?”

“Yes,” Sirius explained, suddenly all stuffy and formal as if channeling some medieval dance instructor, “but that’s only in a cotillion, and Prongs doesn’t want to dance with Lily in a stuffy cotillion.”

“I’d much prefer a slow dance with her,” James sighed dreamily.

Harry tried to suppress the uncomfortable lump of horror that threatened to rise up his throat at the idea of James feeling Lily up while dance. “Ooookay, I did not need to know that you wanted to grope my mum while swaying to music from The Hobgoblins.”

“Hey, I’m not going to grope her!” James yelled, elbowing Harry roughly.

“Grope who?” The three of them looked up, and there Lily Evans was, with her painted face glimmering in impish delight as she smiled when Gary Stretton pulled a chair up for her like a perfect gentleman. James muttered under his breath that before Harry knew it, he would be a Harry Stretton instead of a Harry Potter when he went back to his timeline.

“Potter, are you and Black up to your inappropriate designs in getting into the girls’ dorms again?” she demanded, quickly transforming from teenage girl in a Halloween party into straight-laced, goody-two-shoes prefect mode.

“We weren’t even doing anything!” James protested, scowling when Gary also decided to join them at the table and the other boy laughed.

“Potter, if you want people to believe you, you really ought not to have dressed in Quidditch robes for an All Hallows costume party,” he said. “It’s so pedestrian.”

“I’ll give you ‘pedestrian’,” James muttered even as Harry and Sirius made sure to hold him back by the tails of his robes, charmed to look like those of Josef Wronski from the Grodzisk Goblins, when they won the Quidditch World Cup not three years ago in the current era.

“I’m just saying,” Stretton said, obviously utterly unaware that he was digging his grave at this point, “that it’s poor form to show up in recycled charmed robes, especially robes you wear to activities as commonplace as school Quidditch.”

Lily’s face darkened at her date’s words. “Really? So I assume my costume _must_ be in poor form too, since all I’d done was charm my sister’s hand-me-down clothing to look like a costume?” She didn’t let Stretton get another word in edgewise, and turned to James. “Well, Potter? Would you like to dance with me instead? Seeing as we’re _both_ wearing costumes in ‘poor form’ apparently.”

James looked like he’d won the lottery and Sirius and Harry exchanged sly grins, as James led Lily back to the dance floor with a courtly Old World gentility Harry never thought he would have seen from the normally boisterous and irreverent boy.

“Well,” Sirius whispered to Harry under his breath, “it looks like you may be staying a Potter for the foreseeable future now.”

Harry grinned and couldn’t agree more, and decided he’d had enough of a stuffy party. He’d take Sirius out on a proper date. Even if it _was_ just a walk outside, in the wintery grounds of Hogwarts.

Later, when Harry and Sirius were just coming back up into the castle after walking outside and playing a game of spot all the couples making out in the bushes, they were accosted by a harried-looking Lucius Malfoy whose pinch-faced expression tightened even further as he noticed Harry and Sirius darting through the shadows to sneak back into the castle after curfew. The party had ended already it seemed, and the two of them had lost track of time when after their childish game, they’d decided to _be_ one of those couples making out in the bushes themselves. Harry felt he had an entire rose bush stuck in his hair even after Sirius had cast a charm to clean them up of twigs and leaves after they’d rolled around behind the greenhouses, with wandering hands and passionate lips. Harry was lucky that neither he nor Sirius had ever had any experience with being with other boys or men or things would have devolved from hands on crotches over clothes and into something neither of them were prepared for very quickly, with how hot and heavy Sirius liked to come on whenever they were alone, and how Harry had an innate ability of being unable to keep it in his pants where Sirius was concerned.

“Five points from Gryffindor and Slytherin for having your shirts on backwards,” Lucius thundered at the two of them as he approached.

Sirius scowled. Their shirts _were_ on backwards, the result of shy but hurried attempts to redress each other after they’d both decided to put off more pleasurable activities in favor of the warmth of the castle (Harry’s nipples felt like they were alternately going to spontaneously combust from Sirius’ ministrations and just contracting into his chest from the cold night air), but that wasn’t even an actual punishable offense. “What crawled up your bum and died there, Malfoy?”

Lucius harrumphed in that patently Malfoy way. “Andromeda’s missed her rounds and now I have to go cover for her.”

“Oh relax, would you,” Sirius said. “She’s probably gone to find somewhere private to be with that Tonks bloke. You would too, if your parents were trying to marry you off in a creepy two-way marriage to those rat-faced Lestranges.”

Harry didn’t think that was a very fair statement—Rabastan, the fourth year boy who was Keeper in the Slytherin Quidditch team, and even the adult Death Eater Harry remembered, looked more like a half-feral wildcat than a rat. He hadn’t known that a double arranged marriage with the Lestranges was the reason Andromeda had eloped with Ted Tonks in her youth.

“Well as a prefect, she has responsibilities she shouldn’t be shirking in favor of cavorting with a mudblood,” Lucius said snottily. Harry wanted to hit him, but Sirius quickly dragged him away.

“You two had better get back to your common rooms before I report you to your heads of houses,” Lucius called after them, and the two of them laughed and giggled all the way through the Great Hall until they had to part at the staircases, where Sirius kissed Harry in that toe-curling, pornographic fantasy-inducing way he had about him, before they parted to retire to their respective dorms.

Harry was so happy with the way his evening had ended that he hadn’t even thought to hex Snape back when the greasy git called him an entire string of homophobic slurs under his breath when Harry passed him in the dorms to get to his bed. He still didn’t like fancy parties and having to make nice at them, but he wrapped himself up in the memory of Sirius’ mouth on his, his hands under Sirius’ shirt, and decided that the night could not have ended on a more perfect note.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a bit of fun writing the Halloween Ball scene. I generally don't like writing party scenes as I'm not really a very social person, but Sirius being a bit of a dick, Mafalda being shrill and snotty, and Harry confused by it all and rather oblivious that Sirius was jealous made for a funny story in my head. I love James Potter here, how he could tell that Harry was digging his grave with his boyfriend, and his biting humor over Gary Stretton, and I think I'm going to create a shrine dedicated to how awesome he and Remus Lupin are.
> 
> Notice how both Harry and Sirius are utter hypocrites about their relationships? Sirius promising that Harry is his one true love while stringing girls along, and Harry finding Ginny's unraveling with her alcohol issues after James Sirius died in their timeline, but then actually being quite the drunkard himself, and abandoning his family to boot? Yeah, I like my characters flawed and human.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops, my hand slipped while writing and I accidentally wrote porn. Sorry but not really sorry lmao  
> If the porn is not your cup of tea, you can stop reading after Sirius says “The Room of Requirement, perhaps?” and just assume they get horizontal there. There isn't really anything plot-relevant you'd be missing. It's really just sex.
> 
> Also, highly recommended, but not really all that important in the grand scheme of things: read the end notes for some context on wizard clothing in my fic.

Lucius was still cross two days later when Harry encountered him at the Slytherin risers after Quidditch practice. Harry didn’t know why he was even here. Narcissa had skipped out on practice so there was no reason for him to be hanging around the risers. He didn’t seem like the sort of person who was fanatical about Quidditch, not like Rosier’s friends, who were all grouped at the top riser, watching the team as they worked through scrimmage games.

Their first game was coming up the following week against Ravenclaw and was going to be the first match of the year, and Talkalot was cocky with their chances that they were going to completely blow the other teams out of the water when Harry took to the air as their Seeker. He was easily the best Seeker Hogwarts had seen, she’d boasted to the team, and was sure to bag them the Quidditch Cup that year. Harry nodded along with the rest of the team, though his kept one hand with fingers crossed in his pocket. There was no way he was going to steal the Quidditch Cup victory from James. It’s already _happened_ in his timeline, and if there was one thing Harry was unwilling to change, it was that.

When practice ended, Lucius strode down the stands and headed straight towards the huddle of Quidditch players in green and silver robes.

Rosier scowled at Harry as he spotted the blond-haired youth approaching. “Are you in trouble again?”

“I didn’t do anything,” Harry responded automatically, scowling back.

And he hadn’t. He’d been so distracted by Quidditch and getting to know James and Remus and spending time with Sirius that the mission he’d set himself on arriving in 1977 had completely taken a backseat to sitting with them around the fire in the replica Gryffindor common room in the Room of Requirement and talking, sometimes well into the night, about the future he’d come from, and getting to know his father and his father’s friends, about the kind of people they were growing up.

Sometimes, they’d talked of the time Harry had first met the Sirius of his time, the scruffy black dog that had appeared outside Number 4 Privet Drive, and had watched over him when he’d run away when he blew up his Aunt Marge. James laughed uproariously at the thought that his son had done that with accidental magic, before solemnly declaring that Harry would _never_ end up with Petunia and her husband if James and Lily ever kicked the bucket in the future. Sirius vowed that he would never chase after Peter so he would never end up in Azkaban and leave Harry to Dumbledore’s mercies, and Remus promised there would never be a time that he wouldn’t have a backbone to stand up to the headmaster who had been kind enough to give him a chance to learn magic despite his affliction, that if James and Lily were ever gone from Harry’s life, he and Sirius would always be there to fight for him.

Other times, they talked about Harry’s mission, how it differed now from how it had happened in his timeline. Sirius theorized that since there was no prophecy in this timeline, that Harry didn’t have to do everything on his own, that he needn’t be the one to continue on this quest for Voldemort’s Horcruxes, or to fight him to the death.

Privately, Harry disagreed. He’d already had this argument with nearly all of the professors who knew of his true self, and none of them had ever offered their assistance. Dumbledore insisted that Harry’s entire presence in 1977 was dangerous to the future, that he was changing things that weren’t meant to be tampered with. McGonagall felt that her primary duty was to protect the students of Hogwarts and not chase after megalomaniac dark wizards, which were more the domain of the Aurors, a noble if misguided belief as far as Harry was concerned, since Voldemort neither cared nor discriminated as to whether or not the people he killed were children. Croaker and Slughorn couldn’t appear to be bothered, not when their positions remained secure. No one, it seemed, was interested in doing anything about the pervading sense of dark times that permeated wizarding Britain in 1977.

Harry didn’t even know if the Order of the Phoenix was active then. They had to be, if Dumbledore was still recruiting among the students, but it seemed like the Order preferred to react to the escalating violence that root out its cause. It seemed as if no one but him felt any urgency to stop the events of _his_ past from unfolding, and he had very little in terms of support besides a bunch of teenagers who were totally out of their depth with the sort of darkness that Voldemort presented in their future.

The time he spent with the Marauders felt like a restful interlude amidst the turmoil surrounding his life, especially with how his memories of the future were degrading and disappearing so rapidly. He could no longer recall, for instance, when Sirius mentioned that Harry had been trying to kill himself when he’d been locked up in the Department of Mysteries.

That was a sore point of discussion whenever it was just the two of them alone. Sirius didn’t understand why Harry had been so hellbent on dying, and Harry _knew_ there was a very good reason for it, apart from the fact that he had been horribly depressed at the time, but he couldn’t, for the life of him, remember what it was. It tore at him and frustrated him endlessly, until Sirius would whisper hushed nothings and soothe him with soft touches and wild kisses that stole Harry’s breath away. It seemed, whenever he was with Sirius, that he’d been in a very long nightmarish fever dream, and he was only just now waking up, and Sirius was the bright cheerful shaft of sunlight that penetrated the horror and terror of a half-remembered past/future, making Harry feel simultaneously old and yet not really as he had no memory of experiencing aging and living through all sorts of things into adulthood.

So when he repeated to Lucius that he’d done nothing wrong as soon as the blond man approached, he’d been telling the truth.

Lucius gave him an impatient shake of his head. “I don’t believe you, else Lord Arcturus wouldn’t be here asking for you and Sirius right this moment.”

Harry frowned. “Who?”

“Arcturus Black,” Rosier supplied. “Regulus’ and Cissa’s grandfather. What’s Lord Black doing here, Lucius? Are you and Cissa getting engaged? I heard from Rab that his brother and Bellatrix are tying the knot next year.”

Lucius sniffed. “Don’t be presumptuous, Evan. You know that if a marriage petition were to arise, my father wouldn’t choose holding such a meeting at Hogwarts, of all places. How pedestrian.”

Rosier laughed contemptuously. “I suppose Uncle Abraxas would prefer some lavish banquet in Malfoy Manor, so he can upstage Mr Lestrange’s offering for Bellatrix. Can’t imagine you fighting a chimera though, as a pre-show to the engagement soiree. You have to admit, Roddy has style.”

“It was but a cub, and it’s barbaric to kill one when you know how rare and sought after those creatures are,” Lucius declared. “Lord Black found the spectacle quite in poor taste, I assure you. And I would know, since I was there and you weren’t.”

Rosier sneered. “Keep telling yourself that, Lucius. Come on, Patter. If Lord Black wants to see you, it wouldn’t do for you to show up smelling like you’ve cavorted with a herd of hippogriffs. Especially not if you’re planning on upstaging Lucius here, and asking Lord Black for his grandson’s hand instead. Never would’ve thought it’d be you, although with how much you look like Potter, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Knew that Black brother was always a bit of a poof what with how slavish he is over Potter before you showed up.”

Harry blushed violently at Rosier’s offhand remark, but allowed himself to be ushered into the changing rooms for a quick shower. He never gave much of a thought at how the other students would view his and Sirius’ relationship, in all honesty. For the most part, he’d been too busy with his own internal agonizing over whether he and Sirius were right for each other, especially given how old he felt in his head. Sirius had reminded him once that he was thirty six when he left his timeline, but Harry didn’t feel a day older than thirty, which really wasn’t saying much in terms of feeling too old for him. Sirius didn’t really care since he and Harry looked like they were no different in their age, but most of the time, Harry still felt uncomfortable, like he was taking advantage of Sirius’ youth and naïveté.

When he emerged, freshly showered, and in clean, presentable robes, Lucius was already brimming with impatience outside the changing rooms.

“You certainly took your time,” he muttered as they fell into step. At seventeen years old, Lucius hadn’t quite yet reached his full adult height that Harry remembered, but he was still taller than Harry by an inch or two, and his long legs carried him swiftly over the pitch and the grounds faster than Harry, who was tired from practice and was still carrying his broom.

Arcturus Black was holding court in the headmaster’s office. Dumbledore appeared to be back already, finally, and was hosting the formidable Lord Black, listening with a sort of stern patience as the man fumed at him over a missing something that Harry didn’t quite understand as Lucius announced him into the room. He was surprised to see Sirius, Narcissa and Regulus, all sitting around Dumbledore’s desk. Narcissa was pale-faced and pinched and looked like she was on the verge of tears. Regulus appeared confused at their grandfather’s presence in the school, and Sirius looked mutinous. Harry briefly recalled that Sirius had already run away from the Black family home in Grimmauld Place the past summer, and had been disowned by his mother, so he was confused now why Sirius was here, and even more confused that he’d even been called.

“Ah, Mr Patter,” Dumbledore said pleasantly as he conjured a chair for Harry, right next to where Sirius sat. “Thank you for coming. Lord Black has some questions as to the whereabouts of his granddaughter.”

Harry frowned. What? Narcissa was right here.

He bowed, if a bit stiffly, at the man. Arcturus Black was perhaps in his late seventies or even his early eighties, but he looked like a young formidable man in his prime, with the same long, wavy black hair as Sirius, the stern dark brows, sharp cheekbones, and straight nose. His blue-grey eyes flashed as he waved Harry to his chair, and Harry found himself sinking into it without thinking.

“You are the boy with my grandson during All Hallows?” His voice was cold and hard and sounded like granite hitting glass. Sirius made an impatient gesture and Harry nodded, bemused. Arcturus made an impatient noise. “Then you saw where my granddaughter had gone after your evening banquet?”

“Er, Narcissa was with Lucius for most of the evening sir,” he said, still thoroughly confused.

“My other granddaughter, Mr Patter,” Arcturus said icily. “Andromeda. You must know her, she is a seventh year prefect in your house.”

“Oh.” He scratched the back of his head, trying to recall. There were a bit too many students in the Halloween Ball, but he did recall seeing Andromeda dancing with Ted Tonks. He thought she was such a beautiful young woman, and wasn’t surprised that she and Ted had had such a sprightly daughter in Tonks in his timeline. “Er, yes, sir. She was at the party. I remember Lucius was looking for her as Sirius and I—er, as we were coming back from outside.”

Arcturus’ eyes flashed as he looked at his grandson. Sirius stared back at him belligerently. “And what were the two of you doing outside? As I recall, the All Hallows Ball is an _indoor_ party, and that the weather would have been far too bracing to brave out for no reason.”

Harry darted a helpless glance at Sirius, who scowled and shrugged, as if he didn’t care either way if his grandfather found out that he’d been cavorting in the shadows behind the greenhouses with another boy. “We were taking a walk. The Great Hall was getting too loud and stuffy with all of the students dancing.”

Sirius rolled his eyes, and beside him, Regulus pressed his lips together to keep himself from smiling or laughing cheekily at what “taking a walk” must mean for the two of them. Even Narcissa’s vaguely distraught face seemed torn between trying to look appropriately worried at her sister’s disappearance, and trying to suppress a sly smile.

“My lord,” Lucius interjected, “I passed Patter and Sirius on my way out during my evening rounds after the party, and I’d asked them where Andromeda had gone. She’d missed going for her rounds and I’d had to take over for her.”

Arcturus seemed to suppress his own eye roll. “Yes, and we all know that Malfoys are so very keen to perform their duties, whether anyone wants them to or not.” He gestured imperiously at Lucius who had paled at the snide remark. “Well then, continue, boy.”

“Sirius told me not to look for Andromeda as she was probably hiding in some abandoned classroom with her muggleborn boyfriend.” He said that last part with distaste, as if he couldn’t fathom the very idea.

Sirius glowered at Lucius for squealing to his grandfather. Harry turned the same evil eye at Lucius, who remained looking at Arcturus stoically.

Arcturus touched a well-manicured to his temples as if to massage away an oncoming stress headache. “Well then, little lord Malfoy, go and fetch this mudblood paramour of hers.”

Lucius looked affronted by the dig at his position but bowed stiffly all the same, before turning to Dumbledore who sighed.

“Yes, Mr Malfoy, if you would be so kind as to fetch Prefect Tonks,” the old headmaster said. “And if you would be so kind as to avoid calling the boy a slur. He has done nothing to you.”

“A mudblood,” Arcturus said after Lucius had left, his voice tired. “Albus, where did I go wrong with these children that I have young Sirius here running away from home just this past summer, and now, Andromeda consorts with mudbloods?”

“That’s where you’ve gone wrong, sir,” Harry blurted out, finally unable to keep his peace at the repeated slur. Dumbledore’s eyes darted at him appraisingly, but Harry ignored him and glared back at Arcturus when the man turned incredulous eyes at this imp of a boy who dared speak out of turn in his presence.

“What, pray tell, do you mean, boy?”

Harry scowled, suddenly feeling his years, his blood burning with the authority he’d called on as an Auror in his previous life. “Don’t call me ‘boy’. I have a name, and you’ve been told what it is. It’s common courtesy to call people by their names when you’re introduced, Mr Black. I’d presume you know this, seeing as you seem so smug about how high born you and your family all must be, and yet you know very little in the way of good manners in polite company. Or did you think calling a boy _whom you hardly know_ an offensive slur polite in your circles?”

Arcturus looked like he was going to go apoplectic, and now Sirius was tugging at Harry’s sleeve. Harry tugged his arm away.

“You dare—!”

Harry stood. “Yes, I dare, Mr Black. You just called one of my classmates a slur of the most foul and vicious nature when he has done _nothing_ to you. His blood status means _nothing_ to this conversation, and you have done _nothing_ to engender the assistance or support of anyone in this room, including Malfoy over there, who’s just trying to help you. When Malfoy comes back in this room with Ted Tonks, you _will_ address him politely,” Harry said, his eyes starting to glow in that menacing manner that had so frightened Draco all those weeks ago when Draco had seen his face in the Department of Mysteries, “or you will ask no questions and subside in that seat—“ Harry pointed and one of the stools in the anteroom where he knew Dumbledore kept his Pensieve zipped out, stopping just behind Arcturus “—and let people who understand manners in polite company do the asking.”

Arcturus was pale and speechless with rage as he stared with nearly crazed, flashing eyes at Harry, who stared back, power and magic crackling from his fingertips, and itching for a fight. He could smell ozone from where the diadem in his pocket was vibrating with the display of power, reacting to his rage.

Fortunately, Lucius arrived just then with Ted Tonks in tow. The Hufflepuff boy looked confused at having been called to the headmaster’s office, but he paled when he saw Arcturus Black still staring off with Harry.

Dumbledore gestured for him to come close. “Thank you for your timely arrival, Mr Tonks. Lord Black has opened an inquiry as Ms Black has reported her sister, your classmate, Andromeda Black, has not returned to the Slytherin dorms for the past two nights. Mr Malfoy, Mr Patter, and young Mr Black here seem to have the idea that you may have been one of the last people to have seen her before she disappeared.”

Ted swallowed convulsively, staring pleadingly at the headmaster, and not daring to cast a glance at Arcturus, who seemed to have decided to let Dumbledore do the talking. “Y-yes headmaster. Andi and I had gone together to the All Hallows Ball. We were supposed to return to our dorms before the party ended because—“ He paled even more and seemed to have trouble forcing the words out of his mouth. “Andi wanted us to run away together, sir. She—her father was arranging for her to be married to Rabastan Lestrange, after her older sister, Bellatrix, is married next year. She said it was the elder Mr Lestrange’s proposal to have his two sons wedded to two daughters of the House of Black, and she wanted no part of the engagement.”

Dumbledore nodded and looked back at him gravely at this confession. Arcturus looked like he was going to have an aneurysm, but he nodded for Ted to continue, apparently not trusting himself not to start yelling curses at what the young man had admitted.

“Please continue Mr Tonks,” Dumbledore said in a kindly voice.

Ted cast a desperate glance at the four other students seated in the room. He ignored Lucius completely. “Well, she decided we should pack up our things while the party went on, sir, and we could leave once the party ended. We were supposed to meet at The Hog’s Head Inn, and—and we would make our way out of Scotland from there. Only… only she didn’t show up. I waited for her until morning, and I thought maybe she just didn’t want to go through with it anymore, that maybe her parents had talked her into marrying that Lestrange boy.”

Arcturus seemed to have finally found his voice and snorted at this. Harry glowered at him, and he subsided into seething silence.

“I waited one more day, sir,” Ted went on, having gathered steam in his confession now. “I worried that Andi might go there and not find me and think I’d abandoned her, and I would _never_ do that!” he cried passionately. Harry’s heart went out to him; he seemed truly torn up by the turn of events, and his missing love. “I’d only just come back this morning. When I didn’t see her in any of the classes we shared, I thought perhaps she’d taken ill and that’s why she hadn’t come to see me. I didn’t know that… I didn’t know she’s missing.”

Dumbledore nodded thoughtfully. “Please, Mr Tonks, you are hardly at fault here. I understand Ms Black made all the arrangements and plans, and the both of you are in the throes of young love against all odds, especially that of family. Thank you for telling us what you know. You are free to go. Please report your whereabouts to Professor Sprout as I believe she may have tried looking for you when you yourself were reported missing by your classmates in Hufflepuff.”

“Dumbledore—!” Arcturus started to interrupt to keep Ted from leaving the office. He seemed like he was going to grab Ted and attack him. Harry’s eyes narrowed dangerously and the older man sank into his seat. Harry walked Ted, who’d bowed his head, to the moving staircase that led out of the Headmaster’s Office, but did not follow him out.

As soon as he was out, Arcturus sprang out of his seat. “I still do not see my granddaughter anywhere here, Albus. I warn you, if you do not bring her out, and send her home to her parents by the end of this week, you will rue the day that Hogwarts dared to cross the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black.” He turned to his grandchildren. “You three will return home in the weekend to your parents, and we will see about moving you to a different school. One that does not lose _any_ of its students to designs of the unworthy _muggle_ born.” He sneered the last word at Harry.

Narcissa darted a desperate glance at Lucius, who shook his head minutely and mouth “Later!” behind Arcturus’ back. Sirius didn’t look like he cared.

“Well, I’m sure that doesn’t include me, since mum already struck me out of the family tapestry,” he grinned nastily at his grandfather. “Or didn’t you know that?”

Arcturus, for the first time that evening, appeared old and grey, as if he aged just looking at Sirius. “I knew, Sirius. Your mother and I will have words, but in the meantime, I shall expect to see you home with your family at the time I’ve chosen.”

“Sorry, old man,” Sirius replied briskly, standing up and walking over to where Harry stood next to the exit. “Mr and Mrs Potter aren’t expecting my company until Christmas hols. Guess that means I’ll be staying here.”

Arcturus let out a noiseless sigh and nodded. He held his hand out at Regulus and Narcissa, who both kissed the signet ring in his finger that identified him the patriarch of the noble house, and nodded frostily at Dumbledore, who nodded sternly back, before exiting the office via Dumbledore’s Floo to the Black Mansion.

Dumbledore gave a polite, if strained, smile at the assortment of Gryffindor and Slytherin students in his office. “Thank you for your time, lady and gentlemen. Please see yourselves back to your common rooms before curfew starts. Oh, and Mr Patter? Certainly a good show.”

Sirius actually laughed, and even Narcissa and Regulus gave a little giggle, even as Lucius stared across the four of them in polite confusion, as the four of them exited the Headmaster’s Office. Sirius held on to Harry’s wrist, as he waited for his brother, cousin, and Lucius, to walk out of sight, before he rounded on Harry at the corridor and pinned him against the wall, eyes twinkling in mischievous delight.

“You, Harry Potter, are one astounding man,” he breathed before leaning up and capturing Harry’s lips in a searing kiss that seemed to burn Harry to his core, channeling his magic in a completely different sort of passion. Sirius pried his lips open with a quick dart of his tongue and slid in without preamble, tasting and reveling and exulting, with the smooth slide of his tongue against Harry’s, before pulling away, his eyes glazed and his cheeks flushed sensually.

“That was so hot, the way you just put Grandfather in his place, I couldn’t even believe it was happening when you started,” he whispered hotly against Harry’s jaw then pulled back and grinned up at him hungrily. “The Room of Requirement, perhaps?”

For all of Harry’s misgivings over his and Sirius’ budding relationship, he couldn’t seem to be able to say no to him at all. The quick dash to the seventh floor corridors seemed to last an interminable few seconds. The door was already waiting for them when they arrived, giving them the Gryffindor common room without any further thought or action on either of their part, as if primed for this passionate dalliance. Sirius was out of his robes and was tugging and ripping Harry out of his clothes before the door even closed behind them. He discarded the offending garment and made an impatient noise as he found Harry wearing jeans and a t-shirt under his robes.

“I’ll never understand you half-bloods and muggleborns wearing trousers inside your robes,” he muttered as quick and deft fingers made short work of the button and flies of Harry’s jeans before he could mount any sort of protest. Not that he even wanted to—his brain had apparently short-circuited at the sight of Sirius wearing nothing but a thin white vest and his pants, black and tight and tented with his arousal, and skimming the tops of his creamy pale thighs inside his robes.

“Fuck,” Harry choked as Sirius pushed him down on one of the plush red and gold couches, sending the pillows to the floor.

Sirius dropped to the ground in front of Harry and stared up at him with lust-blown dark eyes shadowed with thick, inky black lashes that stole Harry’s breath from his lungs. He seemed to be asking Harry for permission before he moved any further, and Harry could only manage a jerky nod, before Sirius was tugging his trousers down and pulling the red pants he wore down with it.

His cock sprang out, hard, erect and already beading with pre-come. Sirius stared down at it with shining, fascinated eyes, and he licked his lips hungrily, before looking back up at Harry, once again the shy teenage boy asking his permission.

“Fuck,” Harry whimpered again, and Sirius took this as permission as he circled Harry’s cock with slim, deft fingers, and pumped once. Harry groaned and felt the air punch out of his lungs as Sirius pumped twice more before opening his mouth and engulfing Harry’s cock in its warm, wet depths.

It was obvious that this was the first time Sirius had ever done such a thing, but what he lacked in technique, he more than made up for with his enthusiasm, sucking lustily at the head and pulling back and lapping at the pre-come that dribbled out, before making a face, and laughing quietly at himself and then repeating the cycle all over again. Harry felt faint with arousal, his hips itching to shove more of his cock into Sirius’ sinfully inviting mouth, but restraining himself valiantly lest he choke this beautiful wonderful creature who was giving him the most mind-blowing pleasure he had ever felt.

His hands found itself tangling in the smooth locks of Sirius’ silky black hair, so sleek and tamed compared to his own as Sirius bobbed his head experimentally over the shaft and smoothed his hands in the coarse dark hair in Harry’s groin. He could feel a strange jerking motion in Sirius body, and he opened his eyes (he hadn’t even realized he’d closed them) to see Sirius had tugged his pants down and was jerking himself to the motion of his mouth on Harry’s cock.

It was all so scorchingly hot that Sirius could find pleasure in giving him pleasure that before long, he felt his arousal building heavily, searing his veins and sending his blood to a boil, before the pleasure crested and whited out his vision and made his eyes roll back. He felt Sirius give a grunt and a sound of exclamation as it poured through his blood and exploded out of his cock. Sirius gasped and choked for a moment and Harry had to pull him off so he could finish coming without Sirius choking on the viscous bitter fluid.

When he opened his eyes, Sirius was smiling shyly at him, a bit of Harry’s come smeared on his chin, and his stomach a mess where he’d exploded on himself. Harry smiled dazedly back, tugging his glasses, which had fogged in his gasping for breath in the aftershocks, and setting it on the low table near the couch.

“Come here,” he whispered, and waved a hand to cast a wordless cleansing spell at the both of them, the tingle of magic making Sirius’ cock twitch weakly with a valiant effort at regaining interest. Sirius gave a coquettish toss of his head when Harry smirked, and wiped his chin with the back of his hand and tugged up his pants. Harry did the same to his but left his jeans undone, and Sirius shuffled up and collapsed into his arms, still smiling.

“Good?”

Harry grinned and bopped his perfect straight nose. “Don’t fish for compliments. It’s unbecoming.”

Sirius scoffed as Harry arranged the two of them to lie on the couch, Sirius stretched out on top of him, tucking his head underneath Harry’s chin, nosing along his neck, and letting out a small contented sigh. “It was for me. Even if I couldn’t swallow it all.”

Harry chuckled, utterly charmed by Sirius’ earnestness, even when it came to sex. “I didn’t expect you to.”

“I wanted to,” Sirius hummed quietly as he moved skittishly for a moment, trying to get comfortable. “But really, Harry, you were so hot there, all alight and powerful with your magic, but even more powerful and righteous with your words.” He sighed again, soft and quiet and thoughtful. “I really liked it.”

“I could tell,” Harry said darkly as he wrapped one arm around the other man, for that was what Sirius was now, having popped his cherry it seemed, just days away from his birthday. He pressed a kiss to the top of his head, reveling in the feel of him in his arms, so very different than holding a woman, and put to rest all of the misgivings that were constantly crowding his mind as to whether or not what he and Sirius were doing was right. It felt like it was right, and that was enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is it possible to be in love with the BAMF-ness of a character I'm appropriating from another piece of literary work? I'm in utter and complete agreement with Sirius here: Harry was certainly damn hot chastising Arcturus like that, defending Ted, and even Lucius, from Arcturus' insidious words. Notice how Sirius is attracted to the strength of Harry's magic, but asserts that what he finds most attractive is that Harry's heart is always noble and good, and that the magic was just a small piece of what made Harry so wonderful to him.
> 
> Also, on Sirius not wearing trousers under his robes! I feel like I must address this properly, since most people subscribe to the way wizarding robes are portrayed in the movies, but really, memory-Snape in _Snape's Worst Memory_ had it right: wizards don't wear a lot of other clothing under their robes, because the robes itself is already the main piece of garment. I wholly subscribe to this idea, especially since I'm a medieval, high fantasy whore, and Sirius Black reminds me a bit of Dalamar the Dark in _Dragonlance Legends_ , who when asked what wizards wore underneath their robes, had replied rather sensually: "Very little." 
> 
> When worn properly, I imagine wizard robes, including the school robes worn in Hogwarts, look a little more like [this](http://lexicon.dragonlancenexus.com/images/1/1b/Dalamar_the_Dark.jpg) or [this](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/dragonlance/images/c/c2/Raistlin_Majere.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20200731185223), than the open robes that look little more than dressing gowns or kimono-style bathrobes, with a full three-piece suit, or shirt and trousers, or shirt and skirt, inside the robes. Harry, being raised by a muggle family, wore another full outfit of clothing under his robes, I suppose, because he could never get used to the drafty feeling of not wearing trousers, even under his robes. As such, imagine the chafing Sirius must have put himself through, wearing the Sex Pistols-style leather trousers in the Halloween Ball. No wonder he was so put out the entire evening!
> 
> Appropriate? Probably not. But it's my fic and I get the final say of how I want people to dress in it.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, are you complacent yet from the endless stream of fluff and romance and sex you've been reading? I'm here to utterly ruin your day with plot development no one wanted to see.
> 
> TW: Mention of rape.

Harry woke to a distinct feeling of unease prickling under his skin, and for a moment, thought it was because he couldn’t place where he was. A lifetime spent in being a near constant state of danger, first during a childhood spent with the shadow of Voldemort looming over his life, then an adulthood sharpened by paranoid Auror instinct honed keenly by the vagaries of war and her brother, despair, meant he slept restlessly whenever he was somewhere new. The Room of Requirement wasn’t exactly new, but he hadn’t slept with another human being for years now. And even though he quickly realized that it was Sirius still snoring very lightly against his chest, one pale hand curled under his chin adorably as he slept, his heart still raced heavily in his chest for a long moment, before he could convince himself to calm down.

A quick silent _Tempus_ indicated that it was still a few hours before sunrise. The fire in the hearth had banked, and sometime during the night while he slept, Sirius had conjured a blanket to cover them both. The Gryffindor common room replica was cool, grey light filtering through wide open tower windows. Harry spent a few moments reveling in the feel of a half-naked Sirius in his arms, and reliving the hour before they’d both fallen asleep, happy and bonelessly sated and, Harry was fairly sure, rather in love.

He’d had precious few opportunities in his life to enjoy such a freeing emotion. The crush he’d had with Cho as a teenager had been just that—a crush—and had fizzled out almost as soon as it started. When he first realized he was in love with Ginny at sixteen, their world had been at war and Harry hadn’t wanted that love to be used against Ginny and he’d kept her away to keep her safe. When the war ended, their love had been so severely tested by the death of Ginny’s brothers and Harry’s best friends that it had almost not survived but for the conception and birth of their first child. When he first held James Sirius in his arms had almost been like the first proper time that Harry had fallen in love, and it was now all the more bittersweet that that time and place probably no longer existed as the future most certainly would have changed with how long he’d been in this timeline.

Now though, with Sirius, it was like falling again for the first time, a lifetime of loss and regret later. There were things he wanted to do with Sirius, ways in which he wanted to be with him, that was manifestly different from the way Harry had felt for Ginny back during the war and it frightened and excited him at the same time. He knew a big part of the difference had to do with the fact that unlike Ginny, Sirius was heavily embroiled in every part of Harry’s life, having seen a vision of the future that had _been_ Harry’s life. Ginny had always been separate from Harry, removed from his troubles with Voldemort and the war, even though their shared experience at having been possessed by that monster had been a huge part of how they understood each other. With Sirius and the little death he’d experienced at the hands of the diadem, that connection expanded and enveloped every facet of Harry’s life, from the circumstances of his birth, to every point at which he had died and lived again, and more still. He wondered if that was at all normal or even healthy, but he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth by waffling about his feelings. Sirius obviously wanted him back, if his desire and passion for Harry the previous night was to be any indication, and that was all the confirmation Harry needed.

They still had a few hours yet before they had to sneak out back into their common rooms to change for another day of classes. Sirius would probably have a better time sneaking into the safety of the Gryffindor dorms better than Harry did: Remus was a prefect and familiar with the ways his roommates liked to sneak about for pranks or to join him during the full moon. Harry would only be so lucky if Avery, the sixth year prefect, would bother to look the other way. There was also the distinct possibility that Lucius would give him the bollocking of a lifetime for staying out of the dorms all night, especially after Andromeda had been reported missing. He certainly wasn’t looking forward to that, though he was sure he could handle both junior Death Eaters without a problem.

He looked down at Sirius, who burrowed his face against Harry’s neck, snuffling quietly in his sleep, and pressed a kiss to his temple, tightening his arms around him. They had time yet, and Harry fully intended to make good use of that time trying to catch a few hours more of sleep.

He’d just been about to drift off when he heard a voice he never thought he would ever have to hear again in his life.

_“Hungry… so hungry…”_

His eyes snapped open and for a long, disorienting moment, he was back in the war, dreaming of red eyes, flashes of green light, and a high cold laughter. He hadn’t had a flashback from the war since the early days of his Auror training, when he’d gone to see a mind healer, though, and his body was fully in the present, reminding him of every inch of skin that he and Sirius had pressed together in the couch.

_“So hungry… kill… KILL!”_

Harry snapped up to a sitting position, nearly completely dislodging Sirius off of him. The other man gazed up through sleep-befuddled grey eyes, moaning a complaint at being so rudely awakened, but Harry was already standing up, extricating himself delicately from their awkward tangle of limbs. His neck cricked painful from sleeping on the couch, and his legs and feet had a pins and needles feel crawling up and down from where his circulation had cut off due to Sirius’ weight on top of him, but he ignored that completely, his pulse thundering in his ears at the sharp tang of horror that voice was now conjuring up through him.

He did up his still open trouser flies and gathered his and Sirius’ robes on the floor before waking the other man up.

“Sirius, wake up.”

Sirius stirred and blinked sleepily, all heavy eyes and sleep-swollen mouth. “Whut—what’s happened?”

Harry shook his head. “I’m not sure yet, but you need to get dressed, quickly now, and return to Gryffindor tower.”

Sirius blinked stupidly for a moment before it seemed his consciousness finally snapped awake, and he accepted his robes and wand from Harry. “What’s wrong?”

“I thought I heard something,” Harry muttered, pulling his wand out unconsciously and conjuring two small mirrors, one of which he handed to Sirius. “I can’t be sure yet, but I’ve seen this before and I hope it isn’t the same. Take this and go back to your dorms now and stay there until I come get you out. Tell James and Remus, and Lily too if you can, not to go out of the dorms for breakfast until you hear from me. I don’t care if you have to skip your morning classes. _Don’t_ leave Gryffindor Tower.”

Sirius nodded, worry etching over his handsome face. “It’s him, isn’t it? Voldemort? How did he gain access to the castle? Dumbledore protects this place like a fortress.”

Harry shook his head. “No, I don’t think so, but I wouldn’t discount it. Keep the mirror on you all the time until you reach the tower, and don’t look anywhere directly unless it’s through the mirror.” He kissed Sirius swiftly once both of them were dressed. “Oh. I need you to take this from me.” He pulled the diadem from his pocket, ripped a pillowcase from one of the throw pillows on the couch and wrapped the diadem in it.

“It’s not going to—?“

“No, just don’t touch it with your bare hands and don’t try to put it on.”

Sirius snorted as he shoved the little bundle into his pocket. “Of course not.”

“Don’t stop in the corridors for _anything_ , and use the mirror,” he repeated. Sirius nodded anxiously. Harry kissed him again and opened the door. The corridors outside was dark with the coming dawn. “Go now, and hurry.”

“Harry,” Sirius whispered, his dark eyes glittering in the gloom. Something strange and indefinable seemed to be happening between them.

Harry nodded firmly back at him. “Yeah, I know.”

He turned away, and Harry watched his back until he turned in the direction of the stairs that would bring him to Gryffindor Tower before he turned in the other direction, that would bring him to the third floor girl’s bathroom. The way was illuminated by the occasionally lit torches, flickering eerie light on the grey stone walls. The halls were silent at such an early hour, and he didn’t hear the voice again as he made his way downstairs, making sure he was looking in the small hand mirror, angled to reflect the way forward, instead of directly ahead. As he neared the abandoned bathroom, he heard other voices, human this time, one speaking in a small girlish voice that punctuated occasionally with mischievous-sounding laughter, and the other sounding watery and tearful.

Harry approached cautiously as he listened. It sounded like Myrtle found some unsuspecting girl to make fun of, if the sound of her laughter filling the bathroom was any indication.

“…I told you I don’t think I’d seen her,” Myrtle was saying.

“You had to have!” Harry’s eyes widened as he recognized Narcissa’s normally cold, clipped, sharp voice slip into a vague, watery sort of sound. She sounded like she’d been crying for a while, her voice was so hoarse. “He said she’d gone here before she disappeared!”

“Well, I don’t know!” Myrtle cried petulantly. “I’d tell you if I could remember if you were nicer to me, but you’re being awful and demanding and I don’t want to answer anymore!”

Harry heard Narcissa yell a garbled curse at Myrtle, followed by the sound of water splashing, and he was galvanized to action, throwing the door open, just in time to see the sink Narcissa stood before drop slowly into the floor. He knew what was coming, but there was no time to warn her before the massive horned head of the basilisk rose ominously out of revealed tunnel.

Narcissa appeared frozen in horror and fear, and from where Harry stood, it seemed the basilisk’s eyes were still covered by that weird second eyelids film that protected it from attack. There was no time to keep her from certain death as the basilisk reared its great head.

“ _STOP!_ ” Harry yelled, completely unconscious that he’d reverted to Parseltongue, feeling his magic fuel the desperation that tore through him and asserting his will over the horrible tableau unfolding before him.

Time froze completely, powering the Parseltongue spell in this liminal space that served as the entrance to Salazar Slytherin’s absolute dominion in Hogwarts. Harry could see Narcissa jerked backwards, completely unmoving in her leap back from the reared head of the gigantic snake. Motionless droplets of water glittered in the still air where Myrtle had caused her toilet to flood as she jumped in to hide, her ghostly legs and feet unmoving from the force of Harry’s spell, which he could feel quivering around him in the effort of holding the world at a standstill so he could grab Narcissa and turn her head away, pressing her face into his shoulder to avert her eyes.

He felt his magic shiver and snap as Time restarted and set in motion, and he shut his eyes and yelled “ _Engorgio!”_ at the mirror in his hand, enlarging it enough to encompass the head of the snake as it reared back, opened its huge gaping maw, venom dripping from its enormous fangs, and turned the mirror towards the direction the snake.

He didn’t dare open his eyes as he pressed his own face against Narcissa’s head. He could feel her whimpering, tears choking her breath, as the basilisk opened its eyes and turned its yellow stare into the mirrorin front of Harry, and its deadly gaze reverberated against the mirror and bounced it back on itself. The mirror cracked with the magic of the basilisk’s gaze and splintered on Harry’s arm, showering him with shards of glass that bit and cut deep into his skin, on his arms and the side of his face.

“Keep your eyes closed!” he cried to Narcissa, shielding her from the explosion of glass from the breaking mirror, even as they heard the basilisk gave a great hiss of defeat and rolled back into the tunnel, petrified by the dark magic of its own gaze.

He didn’t open his eyes until he could detect no other motion in the bathroom save the steady drip of water from a spout that had exploded from one of the other sinks and dripped water into the vast, endless depths of the tunnel that led to the Chamber of Secrets. When he was sure that he and Narcissa were alone in the bathroom, and that the basilisk had not in fact managed to roll out of the tunnel, he let Narcissa go, heaving as his fingers twitched with the crackle of his magic. He had no idea how he’d managed to completely stop Time to get her to safety, but his pulse thudded in unimaginable relief that the snake hadn’t managed to kill Narcissa, that the gambit he’d pulled with the mirror had even worked. The two of them were drenched from the exploded pipes that the snake had destroyed coming up through the tunnel, and Harry had to futilely pick little piece of glass embedding in his forearm and ripping tiny cuts into the sleeve of his robes.

“Wh-what was that thing?” Narcissa asked in a small, hitching voice, her tear-streaked face bloodless from fear, her eyes wide, red-rimmed and glimmering still with tears.

“Basilisk,” Harry answered hoarsely. “The guardian of Salazar Slytherin’s Chamber of Secrets. Are you all right?”

A minute shake of her head was the only answer Narcissa could muster. It would have to do.

“Listen, I need you to go back to the dorms. If the basilisk has been woken and the Chamber is opened, then there’s someone trapped in there right now.”

She stared up at him. “How do you know?”

Harry looked away. “I’ve seen it happen before. Don’t ask me how.” He peered down the tunnel, hoping the snake wasn’t clogging up the way down. The tunnel yawned empty and dark before him. “Go back to the dorms, Narcissa. I need to go down to the Chamber. Whoever had opened it and woken the basilisk would still be trapped there.”

“No,” she said, her voice still crackling but strong now. “That little ghost girl said she was here. Andromeda. Before she disappeared, the night she was leaving to meet that muggleborn paramour of hers. If she’s not in here, then she must be down there. There’s no other place in Hogwarts that the headmaster knew she would be, and if he didn’t know of the Chamber, then he wouldn’t know to search for her there.”

Harry sighed loudly. Narcissa, if it were possible, was even more stubborn than Sirius. At least Sirius had listened when Harry told him to go back to the dorms.

“Narcissa, that snake isn’t dead yet,” he muttered, frustrated. “And if whoever had woken it has the diary, then whoever has it is either dangerous or in danger themselves. I won’t have you traipsing off after me down there.”

Narcissa’s eyes flashed and she drew herself to her full height. Even with her sodden robes, she was a formidable girl, taller than many her age and only a few inches shorter than Harry. There was a hardness in her eyes that reminded him again of the cold, unyielding woman whose dedication to her family led her to lie to Voldemort to save the life of her son.

“Do not presume to tell me what to do, Patter,” she declared with a haughty toss of her head to whip away the tendrils of wet blond hair plastered to her face. “I know… I can feel my sister is down there, you will not understand the leap in my blood that tells me I’m right, and you will _not_ stop me from getting to her.”

Harry let out a noise of frustration, thoroughly annoyed, but not willing to fight if someone’s life was in danger from Voldemort’s diary Horcrux inside the Chamber. “Do you remember when you saw Sirius die in the Room of Hidden Things?”

Narcissa’s eyes glinted like cold blue steel. “Yes.”

“That’s the sort of thing we’re dealing with here,” Harry said, voice hard. “There’s an artifact down there, I’m sure of it. It’s created by Voldemort, and it’s what’s controlling the snake, what told it to attack you. I’m going to retrieve it, and I’m going to destroy it.”

“My sister is there, Patter; I’m going with you,” Narcissa told him in a voice that brooked no argument. “Lead the way.”

Harry shook his head, simultaneously amazed and annoyed at her insistence, but dropped the argument, and held out his hand. “ _Accio_ Nimbus. We’ll fly down to the Chamber, and you _will_ keep behind me or so help me, I’ll let that goddamn snake petrify and eat you.”

Narcissa didn’t bother to reply as Harry’s broom zoomed into the bathroom and he mounted it. She simply gathered the skirts of her robes and settled herself behind him, and then they were descending down, down into the unknown that awaited in the Chamber of Secrets.

They encountered the snake at the end of the long tunnel. It was just as massive as Harry remembered it, just as terrifying too, especially with the awareness that it was still alive albeit petrified. The pale film that served as its second eyelids covered its glowing yellow eyes and protected the two of them from its gaze. It was so large that it took both Harry and Narcissa casting a concerted _Depulso_ to shove the snake out of the way, so they could land. Narcissa let out an aborted scream when her shoes crunched on the rotting discarded bones of a hundred dead rats, and she clung to Harry as they stepped cautiously around the basilisk’s motionless body.

“Don’t look at it, into its eyes,” he admonished when Narcissa tried to curiously peer at the monstrous head of the basilisk.

Harry took out his wand for a little illumination. The tunnels were dark and damp and littered with corpses of the basilisk’s meals from dozens, maybe even hundreds of years ago, and at one point, they even encountered the remains of its old skin.

“Walk only where I walk, or your shoes won’t make it out of here,” he whispered at her. Narcissa nodded, her face wan and drawn in the pale wand light. “This way.”

It took them a few minutes before they got to the cavernous corridor that housed the giant portal. His memory of the place seemed to sharpen as he took in the towering pillars carved with serpents. The corridor was so huge, it was impossible to see the ceiling shrouded in gloom, and the pillars rose and disappeared into the darkness. Harry could almost remember how alternately terrified and fascinated he had been as a boy, exploring the tunnels and ending up in the Corridor of Secrets.

“Harry!”

He looked up as the voice echoed in the gloom of the corridor. Narcissa squeaked behind him, and clung to his robe sleeve in terror, but Harry wasn’t afraid. That voice! It was so achingly familiar.

They reached the end of the corridor where the portal carved with giant writhing serpent appeared to be sealed.

“ _Open_ ,” Harry hissed at the stone snake and it slithered and writhed until it formed a horizontal figure eight—the Infinity symbol—with the snake eating its own tail.

“An Ouroboros,” Narcissa breathed as she stared, wide eyed as the sound of ancient stones scraping filled the corridor and the portal swung in. “You’re a Parselmouth!”

Harry nodded, but his attention was on the figure lying on the floor just beyond the portal. It was Andromeda, and she was—there was no other way to describe her—absolutely and irrevocably dead. Her body was in rigor mortis and it looked as if decomposition was just starting to set in, filling the Chamber with the cloying scent of death. A small red-haired girl, probably no older than twelve, wearing Gryffindor robes crouched next to her, wringing her hands.

“I tried to keep him from killing her, Harry! You have to believe me!”

Harry’s eyes threatened to bug out of the sockets, so sharp was his disbelief. “Ginny?”

But he was quickly distracted as Narcissa entered through the portal after him and saw her sister. “No!” she screamed as she launched herself to floor, her hands hovering over Andromeda’s body, pale and unmoving. “Patter, do something! Please!”

Harry shook his head, feeling hot tears prickle his eyes. “She’s been gone too long, Narcissa. Even if I did know what to do, I can’t help her anymore.”

Narcissa let out a wail of despair, crouching over Andromeda, tears flowing freely as she clutched her sister’s body to her chest. “What happened to her? Tell me!”

Harry went to ask Ginny, but she was gone. Instead, he heard the click of booted feet on stone floor as a figure emerged from behind the towering statue of Salazar Slytherin.

“She has rather unfortunately met with my basilisk pet.”

Harry frowned as Croaker stood next to the statue. _He_ was the one who opened the Chamber? The one who had Tom Riddle’s diary? _How_? Harry couldn’t remember a good deal of his past life anymore, but Sirius had recounted that he’d spent years in the Department of Mysteries with Saul Croaker in his timeline. Croaker, in Harry’s time, had never even encountered the diary, much less knew about it. In fact, Harry was sure only he and Ginny and Dumbledore had ever truly known about the diary, what it could do and how Harry had destroyed it.

The man smiled at him unpleasantly and even in the eerie greenish glow that permeated the Chamber, Harry could see Croaker’s eyes glowed red, just like Quirrell’s had been when Voldemort made his presence known. Tom Riddle hadn’t used Croaker’s life force to power his soul fragment in the diary to bring him into a semblance of life. Croaker had probably been too controlled, too learned, too powerful to succumb to the magic of the diary in that manner. Instead, it appeared the diary had bewitched Croaker and allowed to Tom Riddle’s malicious spirit take over and break him completely. Harry wondered if this was how he and Ginny had been when the diary took control of them to open the Chamber of Secrets, all those years ago.

“I see you have questions, Mr Potter,” Croaker said. His voice was distorted, like it was coming from far away, but it boomed and echoed in the Chamber as if it amplified the Heir of Slytherin in whatever form he inhabited, all the same. How strange that Croaker/Riddle should remember his name when Harry had never written in the diary in _this_ timeline. Perhaps instead of completely taking over him, the soul had latched on like a parasite, with Croaker as the host, the same as Quirrell had been, and Croaker had just been seduced by Tom Riddle’s seductive dark magic. “I shall try to answer them in good time, but my basilisk has gone hungry for far too long, and your pretty, young friend there would make for a tasty, fresh meal.”

“Who _are_ you?” Harry asked, ignoring the bait. He kept close to Narcissa, who was bent over weeping into her sister’s body, utterly oblivious to the danger that surrounded them.

“My name is Tom Marvolo Riddle,” Croaker said conversationally. “A sixth year student, in the same House as you three, it would seem. You must be surprised as to how I know about you, but then you may not have known that my friendly host here, Saul, had been one of my schoolmates. He’d been so hellbent on discovering my secrets that he didn’t know he was giving away secrets of his own.” Croaker smiled at him, his aged face distorted and ugly with the malice that dripped from Riddle’s magic. “He talked about you, you know. Baiting me as if a strange boy from another time could stop me.”

“I’ve stopped you before, Tom,” Harry said. “I can do it again.”

“Could you now?” Riddle-Croaker laughed and brandished his wand threateningly at Harry’s face. “She couldn’t. That poor girl. I knew her, you see. I recognized her face, even without Saul’s memories to rifle through. She looked exactly like her grandmother. Ah, the beautiful, yet ill-fated Irma Crabbe. Pulled out of Hogwarts at fourteen and forced to marry after that pig of a man, Pollux Black, raped her one Christmas break and got her with child. I went to school with her too, or didn’t you know? And that other young woman must be her sister. I would recognize the Black features on her anywhere.”

“Why did you kill her? She was a Pureblood! I thought you didn’t target Purebloods.”

Riddle-Croaker laughed again and the sound echoed around the chamber like nails to ripping across a blackboard. “Do I need a reason to kill, Potter? This isn’t the first time I opened the Chamber of Secrets. The last time it was opened, a mudblood was killed by my pet. But before she died, dozens of people succumbed to petrification. Purebloods, half-bloods, mudbloods. They make no difference to me. She was in my way; she’d seen my snake before I’d completely broken Saul. She had to die.” His smile was chilling as he moved the wand to point at Narcissa instead. “Just as the two of you will die here now.”

Harry stared at the man with absolute loathing. Even as a teenage boy, Voldemort callously used and disposed of people he didn’t need, and attacked them for no other reason than that they’d gotten in his way to gain a foothold back into life. He was utterly abhorrent, utterly irredeemable.

Harry opened his mouth to speak, to tell him to relinquish Croaker’s body, but Narcissa had let go of Andromeda and was standing behind him.

“You killed my sister over nothing,” she said, voice soft and dangerous. Lethal. “She didn’t know what you are and you killed her, you absolutely filth.” She raised her wand and her magic swelled, incandescent with her rage. “ _AVADA KEDAVRA!”_

The sinister green light leaped from the tip of her wand, unerring, unforgiving, _true_. It shot at Riddle-Croaker’s chest, throwing the man backward with the force of her fury. He was dead before he hit the ground. No soul fragment raced out from his body, so Harry knew he wasn’t possessed so much as bewitched by the magic of the diary completely.

He ran to the body and searched the dead man’s robe pockets and found the diary, battered and scorched with spell marks that indicated Croaker had done his utmost to fight Voldemort’s will. He just hadn’t been strong enough. Or he hadn’t wanted to fight him badly enough. Harry didn’t know, but frankly he didn’t care, for Narcissa collapsed on the floor sobbing hysterically as she clutched her wand, perhaps mourning the sister she would never get back, perhaps just unable to bear the weight of what her fury had caused her to do, Harry didn’t know, but that was something to be dealt with later. First, he had to get her to safety, and then destroy the diary.

He pulled her to her feet and she stumbled against him, sobs wracking her body. “Pull yourself together, Narcissa!” he yelled into her face. “We have to get out of here! I don’t know if the petrification spell of the basilisk’s gaze would work permanently on itself, andwe have to close the Chamber before it gets out again!”

Narcissa let out a little cry as he shook her, and she wrenched herself from his grip, her hand covering her mouth as she tried to suppress her whimpers from escaping. “Andromeda—“

“Levitate her out,” Harry instructed. “I need to get Croaker out too.”

Together, they levitated the two bodies out of the Chamber, through the corridor, and past the maze of tunnels. Only on occasion, Narcissa would stumble, and once, she actually fell, the heels of her shoes not very practical to walk through the ankle-deep water in the tunnels, but never once did her levitation spell falter to drop Andromeda or bang her on the walls. Croaker’s body didn’t fare as well with Harry’s magic. He was distracted with his fear of the snake waking.

He nearly sobbed in relief when they reached the end of the part of the tunnels where they could still walk. His broom still leaned against the opening that led up to Myrtle’s bathroom. “Take it and fly out. I need to do something here first, get one of the fangs to destroy this diary.”

“What if it wakes?” she asked fearfully as she clutched her wand and concentrated to levitate Andromeda’s body out of the steep tunnel.

“I’ll chance it,” he decided. “Nothing else that I know of can destroy this thing, short of truly destructive magic I can’t control. Can you manage to get Croaker out too?”

Narcissa’s face contorted with loathing but she nodded and mounted the broom. Before long, she was gone and Harry was alone as he studied the petrified basilisk, avoiding its eyes. Its jaws were still gaping open, and he took his wand and aimed.

“ _Diffindo_.” The spell cut neatly into bone and tooth and severed one of the enormous fangs. He dug into his pockets and found his magicked kid gloves, the ones that Croaker had been so fascinated with, the ones the other Croaker had given to him in his own timeline. He wrapped the basilisk fang in one of the gloves and shoved it into his pocket with the diary. Then, summoning the dregs of his adrenaline-powered magic, he took his wand and cast a Reductor Curse at the ceiling of the tunnel, causing rocks to fall and seal off the snake on the other side, away from any attempts it could make to gain reentry back into the pipes that snaked through the walls of the castle.

“Narcissa!” he yelled, peering to the top of the steep tunnel that led outside.

“I’m all right,” she called back.

Satisfied, Harry summoned his broom and flew out of the chamber of horrors in what he hoped would be the very last time. When he reached solid ground again, he turned to the sunken sink, imagined the snake carved into the faucet and hissed, “ _Close_.”

And the Chamber was sealed again, but there were two people dead. Narcissa stood from where she crouched on the flooded bathroom floor next to her sister’s body, the enormity of the events that transpired and the finality of her actions finally seeming to come crashing down on her and she threw herself into Harry’s surprised embrace and wept.

When finally, the tears subsided, Harry sat her on top of one of the sinks. Both of them were drenched in water from the tunnels and covered in crushed bone of dead rats. The smell of death permeated the bathroom and clung onto Narcissa’s hair and skin as she’d kept holding onto her dead sister. Harry didn’t know what to do, how to help her. She was catatonic with shock, and the only thing he could do at this point was summon help.

His Patronus had never been so hard to conjure, with Andromeda’s dead expressionless face lying not five feet from where he stood. His bones _ached_ with a tiredness that was reminiscent of how he’d felt right after the war, his muscles cramped from the constant state of tension, and he was shivering with the way his robes clung to him wetly. When the stag emerged from the tip of his wand, he could only muster a tired whisper.

“Get Sirius, tell him it’s me, Harry. I’m in the third floor girl’s bathrooms. I’ve found Andromeda, and Narcissa’s hurt. Tell him to bring the diadem.”

He watched, feeling oddly disconnected from reality as the Patronus fled the bathroom in search of his boyfriend. He didn’t know what else could be done. Perhaps he should have gotten Dumbledore instead, but he was too tired now to conjure another Patronus just now. He turned instead to Narcissa, who sat there, stony-faced and unmoving, her eyes unblinking as she stared at her sister’s dead form.

“Narcissa,” he said, trying to muster a voice that wouldn’t startle or frighten her, but she cringed from him anyway. “I need you to give me your wand. Sirius is coming, and he’s going to get help, and you _can’t_ be caught with a wand that’s cast the Killing Curse.”

Her neck seemed to creak as she turned her tear-stained face to him. Her blue eyes were open so wide and startling, he could see the whites all around.

“Please,” he whispered. “You have to let me help you. I’ll give you my wand. It’ll work for you. It belonged to… someone you loved very much, once.”

She didn’t move, but the wand, clutched in her nerveless fingers, fell and would have rolled to the floor had Harry’s Seeker instincts, still sharp even in his weariness, kicked in and he caught it. He pressed the hawthorn wand into her hand, and closed her fingers around it.

“Tell no one what happened,” he said. “I’ll handle everything.”

She let out a breath that could have been a sigh, and then her eyelids drooped and shimmered again, and a tear rolled down her face. Harry lifted a hand and caught it, and then he put his arm around her and let her cry quietly into his robes again.

“ _Potter_ ,” he thought he heard, but it wasn’t in Narcissa’s hoarse, watery voice. It sounded distant, and eerie, and male. A voice he’d heard before, from his childhood. A voice that had been pompous, and then filled with hatred and vitriol, before finally, wilting in defeat through the years that he’d known him.

Draco’s voice was like a constant. He’d been hearing him on and off since he’d appeared in the past. Now, Harry could see him, in front of him. Draco was as Harry remembered him, in this same bathroom, back in sixth year, when he’d seen him crying desperate tears, hopeless and consumed with fear over his imminent failure. He wasn’t crying now, but he looked the same as he had that day, hollow and pale, with worry lines etched deep around his mouth and eyes.

“ _Thank you for helping her,”_ Draco said, his voice soft, but seeming to echo in Harry’s mind.

“How are you here?” Harry asked, too tired to even think.

“ _I’d tell you if I knew, but right now, I don’t.”_

He shook his head. How could that be? Draco wasn’t the first person or even thing that Harry had seen from his timeline. He’d seen Snape’s book, in the Room of Hidden Things. That book was still sitting in his book bag, hidden away from any unsuspecting idiot that may come across it and attempt to use the malicious spells he’d invented and written in its margins. Harry was sure now that he’d seen Ron and Hermione at the Halloween Ball. And just now, in the Chamber of Secrets, Ginny in her second year, trying to wake Andromeda from death. What was happening? Why were they all suddenly showing up here? All the people he’d seen so far were dead in his timeline. Perhaps Draco was too, as Sirius had seen in his vision.

“Are you dead?” he asked in a toneless voice. Beside him, Narcissa stirred from where she’d hurried her face in his shoulder. It seemed she’d fallen asleep, too tired to even keep crying. Harry gathered her close and tried to keep her warm. He was too tired to do it with a spell.

Draco reached out to touch her, his fingers caressing gently over the tangled wisps of blond that were plastered to her face. “ _I’m not… I think I’m dreaming.”_

“What about the last time?”

He looked at him, his grey eyes looked as if they were transparent, and not for the first time, Harry wondered if he too had fallen asleep from his tiredness and this was just another fever dream. “ _What do you mean last time?”_

“The last times I heard you. At the Room of Requirement. It’d appeared to me as if it were… dead. After the Fiendfyre. And out at the lake. I fell asleep once and I heard you calling out to me, and telling me I’m a maudlin drunk. I hadn’t even been drinking then.”

Draco’s eyes suddenly darted to his left and widened. Harry tried to follow his gaze but there was nothing there, just empty toilet stalls. “ _Wait, no, please—! I just wanted to see her!”_

“Malfoy?” Harry called out.

But Draco was gone as if he’d never been there, and just then, the door to the bathroom burst open and Sirius, James, Remus and Peter tumbled in, their eyes widening in horror at the sight of the dead bodies on the wet floor.

“Oh holy Merlin!” James exclaimed and Harry could only offer a tired, pained smile that explained nothing, but told everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I'm so very sorry I turned Andromeda into this fic's Cedric Diggory! I promise it needed to happen because reasons! All will be revealed soon as I manage to write it all out. This part of the story was massively difficult to finesse. Things kept cropping out that I hadn't prepared for in my outline, and I kept having to add scenes that weren't in the original story I was planning because I'm crazy and I don't like loose threads.
> 
> And of course, before you castigate me for the Black sisters' horrible ancestry, rape victims being forced to wed their attackers, especially if they knew them, do happen, and it's fucking awful, and I _do not believe in it_ nor do I glorify it in the story. As you can see, even a depraved murdering maniac like Voldemort was disgusted by it. This was meant to emphasize how ancient and archaic and just awful some of the beliefs that the Black family hold.
> 
> Mark this chapter as when quite literally everything that happens just goes absolutely dark and everything is just downhill from here. Poor Harry.


	15. Chapter 15

Harry had no time to prepare for anything. Peter had gone straight for McGonagall’s office the moment the four Marauders had seen the bodies. McGonagall had arrived with Dumbledore and Slughorn in tow. They’d taken one look at the two bodies on the floor, and at Harry and Narcissa, drenched and bloodied and wounded from the mirror exploding in Harry’s hand and bundled them out into the hospital wing.

Madam Pomfrey let out a cry of dismay, seeing Harry and Narcissa, nearly blue with the shock and cold, and confined them into beds separated by a thin screen. The Marauders were sent back to their common room unceremoniously, as Pomfrey plied Harry with Pepper-Up potions and cleaned up the wounds on his arm and face with magic. Narcissa remained asleep, and Harry hoped she would continue to remain unconscious until he’d managed to get the story out of the events surrounding Andromeda and Croaker’s deaths.

“A few questions must be answered, Mr Patter,” Dumbledore said as the three teachers crowded around his bed.

Madam Pomfrey came back from her office and shoved a mug of hot cocoa to Harry to warm him up further. “Albus, this boy has been through a severe trauma. Your answers must come _after_ I’ve ascertained Mr Patter shall live and not die of hypothermia.”

Harry shook his head. He didn’t want to wait any further for this interrogation. “It’s alright, Madam Pomfrey. I can talk.”

“Ten minutes,” the mediwitch warned, before bustling to the other side of the screen to care for Narcissa.

Dumbledore erected a privacy spell around Harry’s bed and looked at him gravely. “You’ll have to forgive the precautions and the haste, Mr Potter. We have a student and a professor dead on school grounds, and I’m duty-bound to report to the Aurors, before Lord Black comes thundering back.”

Harry nodded, gulping his cocoa. “I know.” He looked at his three teachers and wondered, at this point in time, with the first war already brewing in the horizon, how the three of them could be so clueless, so naive as to believe that trouble with Voldemort would not come into the school. “Croaker opened the Chamber of Secrets.”

McGonagall gasped, her eyes darting to Dumbledore in swift remembrance of the last time it had happened. She’d already been a teacher then and probably recalled the pandemonium it had caused, with students starting to turn up petrified left and right, culminating in Moaning Myrtle’s death, and Hagrid’s expulsion. Harry didn’t blame her, she’d been just as gobsmacked and fearful when it had happened during his timeline.

“Albus,” she breathed. “Hagrid hasn’t—“

“I’ve closed it already,” Harry interrupted, “So you don’t have to worry about any more deaths or petrifications happening in the school. And no, Hagrid had nothing to do with it. He didn’t even _know_ about the Chamber of Secrets.”

He fished into his pocket and took the diary out. “ _This_ is what’s caused the deaths and petrification associated with the Chamber, not Hagrid, or the giant spider he kept under his bed in 1943.”

Dumbledore stared at the diary with unreadable eyes, though Harry knew he already had his suspicions, but McGonagall and Slughorn appeared uncertain.

“It’s the diary of a student back in 1943. His name was Tom Riddle. You know him currently as Lord Voldemort.” Another chorus of gasps that Harry let slide before continuing. “He—he trapped a part of his soul into this diary to bewitch anyone who wrote into it. I’m sure when he first opened the Chamber, during Hagrid’s time, he hadn’t needed it. He could open it well enough on his own. The entrance to the chamber can only be used by someone with the ability to speak Parseltongue.”

“My god,” Slughorn cried.

Harry nodded. That about summed how felt about everything that’s happened. “The Chamber is guarded by a basilisk, placed there in stasis, I suppose, by Salazar Slytherin himself. The rumor that only the the Heir of Slytherin can open the Chamber is utter bollocks, of course, since I’m in no way related to him nor his last living descendant, but I’m a Parselmouth, and I _can_ cast the spell to open or close it. But the control of the basilisk… _that_ is reserved for the Heir… or a person controlled by the Heir through the diary.”

“So the diary,” Dumbledore prompted.

“I can only guess that Croaker obtained it from one of Voldemort’s cohorts. In my timeline, he’d left it with Lucius Malfoy, who got it into the school by slipping it among the school-things of a first year student he’d accosted at Diagon Alley.” There was no need to name Ginny. Harry didn’t want to sully her memory by having all of these people in the past think that there may be something inherently wrong with the Weasleys if Ginny had succumbed to Voldemort’s powers. Didn’t matter that she’d only been a little girl, eleven, at the time, pitted against magics she could not hope to fight. “I don’t know who he may have gotten it from, but Croaker evidently tried to break the diary’s enchantment. You can see the scorch marks of his spells on the cover. When he couldn’t, he probably decided to write into the diary, to bait the spirit of Tom Riddle that resides in it.”

“How can you know this?” Slughorn demanded, disbelief clearly written on his face.

“Because he told me!” Harry yelled back, stung. He was tired of being disbelieved and doubted at every turn, and he was utterly, just fucking _worn out_ after having to fight for his life, to get Narcissa away from imminent danger, to bring out Andromeda’s body, Croaker’s corpse. He wanted them all to stop questioning him, but this needed explaining. He just wished they would all stop doubting what he knew when he said he knew. “The Chamber was already open when I got to the bathroom, and the basilisk was out and about to attack Narcissa. I couldn’t just let it kill her!”

McGonagall exchanged another glance with Dumbledore and nodded placatingly. “We understand, Potter. Please continue.”

So he told them about the mirror, a trick he’d devised after remembering how Hermione had gone around the castle, once she realized the monster in the Chamber was a basilisk, and how to keep it from killing her by only looking indirectly, into the snake’s reflection in the mirror. He told them how he’d petrified the snake with its own stare, how it fell back into the tunnels. How he determined that there was probably at least one more person in the Chamber, likely trapped their with their life force leached out by the magic of the diary, how he couldn’t let that happen, not again, not after what he and Ginny had gone through in second year.

“And Ms Black?” Slughorn demanded.

“Narcissa wouldn’t let me go alone,” Harry sighed tiredly. “She said she could feel it in her blood that Andromeda was down there… and she was right. Andromeda _was_ down there, in the Chamber. But she was already dead and decomposing. Croaker had been possessed by the diary, and he’d killed her when she saw the snake… probably the night of the All Hallows party.”

“Merlin and Morgana,” McGonagall said, her eyes wide behind her half-moon glasses. “How did the two of you get away?”

Harry stopped talking and licked his lips anxiously for a moment. This was the part where he needed his wits about him if he wanted the professors to believe that Narcissa hadn’t been the one to cast the Killing Curse. Harry stared shrewdly at the three of them.

“You have to realize, Croaker was about to attack us. He’d been completely broken. When he talked, it wasn’t _him_ talking anymore, but Voldemort. Tom Riddle.” He took a sharp breath. “I _had_ to kill him.”

Dumbledore nodded somberly even as McGonagall and Slughorn let out cries of dismay. “Your wand, Mr Potter?”

Harry held his breath as he handed Dumbledore Narcissa’s wand. He cast _Priori Incantato_ and the echo of the Killing Curse she’d cast whispered out in a wisp of green smoke.

“An Unforgivable,” Slughorn said, his face ashen. “Albus, the Aurors…”

Harry shook his head. “ _I_ was an Auror, Professor, if you haven’t forgotten. I was an Auror during my timeline, and I responded to lethal danger with a lethal curse, to protect a student.”

“I know, Mr Potter,” said Dumbledore. “But you are not an Auror here and now. We have no choice but to alert them.”

McGonagall looked distressed. “Albus, is there nothing to be done? Barty will throw this boy into Azkaban the moment they find that he’d cast the Killing Curse, regardless of the circumstances!”

Dumbledore stood, aged pale face stricken. “We will demand a trial, of course. Mr Potter will be administered Veritaserum, and his memories of the events offered as evidence. I only fear that Lord Black may advocate his incarceration anyway, with his missing granddaughter pronounced dead. I will see what sway I have over the Wizengamot to ensure Mr Potter has a fair trial.”

Harry’s eyes widened. Veritaserum _and_ his memories? That couldn’t happen! He could maybe get around the Veritaserum, it wouldn't be much different from breaking an Imperius curse, but with his memories, Narcissa would be found out and then who knew what would happen to her?

“If Madam Pomfrey deems you well enough to return—“

“I cannot allow a boy who’s cast Unforgivable curses back into the Dungeons!” Slughorn cried in protest. Harry though venomously that one didn’t need Unforgivables to kill; just look at what Snape and Mulciber had tried to do to him. And that had just been a ‘prank’. He shuddered to think what the junior Death Eaters in the Slytherin dorms were capable of given the opportunity.

Dumbledore looked ancient and grey, as if the recounting of the events had aged him considerably. “I understand your concerns, Horace. Mr Potter, I’m afraid we will have to remand you to a secluded location in the castle until the Aurors have determined a date for trial. I would not allow you, or any student of mine, released into their custody.”

McGonagall, though still pinch-faced, looked marginally relieved. “Horace and I will call the DMLE. I will see what sway _I_ still have in my former department, if I had any at all, on Mr Potter’s behalf.”

Harry inclined his head gratefully. “Thank you, Professor. We’re still not done yet, though. The soul fragment in the diary is still alive. We need to kill it.”

“And how do you—“

She stopped talking as Harry pulled the basilisk fang out of his pocket. It was still wrapped in the kid glove. Carefully, he laid the diary out on the bed, opened to a random blank page. He needed them to believe him unequivocally. His words may not be enough, but if he could demonstrate that Tom Riddle’s spirit was inside trapped in the diary’s pages, they would.

“ _Reveal yourself,”_ he hissed in Parseltongue at the diary.

Immediately, the shade of Tom Riddle, hazy and amorphous without any of Croaker’s life force powering it, sprang out. He looked terrifying, his handsome young face contorted as he spotted Harry and tried to lunge at him, but he was too weak to be corporeal.

“Potter!” the shade shrieked in an otherworldly voice.

Harry didn’t wait to see if it would attack him, if the attack would result in any damage, and stabbed the basilisk fang onto the pages, once, twice. Ink spilled out of the empty pages, like black blood gushing from a mortal wound, and spreading across the white sheets of the hospital bed. He shielded his eyes as a burst of light powered through the shade of Tom Riddle and expanded, encompassing his entire ghostly form before completely overwhelming it and bursting out of the seams until the shade disintegrated and disappeared entirely. The ink that gushed out of the diary’s pages dried into invisible marks, and all that was left of Tom Riddle’s diary was the cover and pages ripped through by the basilisk’s venom.

Harry wrapped the fang with his glove and shoved it back into his pocket. “Now, it’s over.”

* * *

Harry had no idea that being “remanded to a secluded location in the school” meant being taken to the same tiny cell that Sirius had been locked up in third year after Snape had “caught” him and handed him off to Fudge to be administered the Dementor’s Kiss. He supposed a reprise of the situation except here, he was the one in need of rescuing as opposed to being the one mounting the rescue, made sense in a twisted sort of way given how absolute shit his life had turned out.

The room was small and dusty and claustrophobic, with bars for a door that opened to a high parapet. Harry had to wonder what sort of purpose the room actually had, unless school administrators of centuries past thought it a good idea to keep students in what amounted to little more than a cell exposed to the elements.

Madam Pomfrey had tried to vehemently oppose Harry from being transported to the room, but Slughorn was adamant to keep Harry away from other students, and with Narcissa recovering in the hospital wing, it meant Harry couldn’t be sequestered there, so here he was instead, cold and miserable and wandless, his magic not yet fully recovered to manage even a windless unlocking spell to get himself out of the cell. Not that it would be particularly smart for him to break out of the cell. He didn’t think it would look particularly good for him to try to escape; that’d just make him a fugitive. He’d already lived a year of his life that way. He wasn’t keen on reliving it now.

That wasn’t his biggest problem though. If indeed there was to be a trial, and if he was to agree to Veritaserum and the release of his memories during interrogation with the Aurors, his lie to protect Narcissa would be found it. He’d already made his bed with that lie, and we was damn well going to lie in it. But Veritaserum and his memories would certainly put a huge dent in that plan.

 _“Merlin, you really_ are _maudlin._ ”

Harry blinked. Draco was back. He stood just outside the cell, leaning against the tall stone parapet in ridiculous silken blue pajamas. He looked sleep-mussed and utterly out of place against the stormy backdrop of the Scottish early winter skies. He looked like his older self, his face no longer as pointy as Harry remembered him as a teenager, his blond hair messy and hiding his mildly receding hairline.

“Am I hallucinating you or are you real?”

Draco shrugged. “ _I doubt it matters for what you’re about to deal with. I’m asleep now, in case you didn’t know. I can only guess that whatever shit you pulled with the Time Turner’s caused some sort of instability on the fabric of Time. Maybe that’s what’s causing odd things to overlap in wherever you are now._ ”

A tear in the fabric of Time. Harry considered it. Was such a thing even possible? Time functioned as a straight line, moving from one point to another. There was no possibility of Time bending or folding, but there had to be exceptions, else Time Reversal charms wouldn’t work, and artifacts like the Time Turner wouldn’t exist. He thought back to the Frozen Time spell that he’d pulled with Parseltongue earlier to save Narcissa from the basilisk.

“I guess that could work,” he said slowly. “Why do you only appear when I feel like I’m in absolute deep shit?”

Draco rolled his eyes. “ _That’s what you want to waste my time on? Asking me inane questions?_ ”

“Well, what did you want me to ask? Not like there’s a lot to talk about while I’m locked up here.” Harry snorted. “I couldn’t very well invite you to tea.”

“ _Don’t you have some sort of dilemma that you need a fairy godmother to fix for you?”_

Harry folded his arms across his chest. “What, and you’re supposed to be my fairy godmother?”

_“Well, I’m the one here now, aren’t I? How are you getting around your trial if you’re locked up here?”_

Harry shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m too tired to be able to do anything anyway. Can barely manage a Warming Charm right now. My bollocks are freezing.”

Draco sighed the sigh of the long-suffering. _“You’d think with magic on your side, you humans would be kind enough to each other to manage centralized heating in your magical castles._ ”

Harry frowned. “What?”

 _“Come here.”_ Warily, Harry approached the bars. Draco reach out and his hands, warm with a light touch from his spindly fingers, cradled Harry’s face. _“Stop cringing. This is how_ my _magic works here.”_

Harry did start to cringe anyway and pull away, but Draco held his face towards the bars and pressed cool lips on his forehead, right where his scar was. Instantly, he felt warmer. He stumbled back and wondered what this apparition of Draco was. Now that he looked at him, Harry couldn’t recall having ever met Draco as an adult, after the war, after Draco’s trial. He _knew_ he ought to have. Sirius had told him he’d been with Draco before Harry had used the Time Turner, that he’d been working with him for years on it.

Draco stared at him, frustration evident in his face. “ _Merlin, there’s no helping you, you paranoid little fuck._ ”

“That isn’t how magic works,” Harry told him.

Draco rolled his eyes again. “ _As opposed to what? You stopping Time with Parseltongue? Or how about you surviving death an uncountable number of times in your timeline? Maybe you were expecting magic and reality and time and death to work exactly as you’ve been taught how when you ripped right through it all to come here and make this the only reality anyone will ever have?”_ He shook his head. “ _You know what, stop questioning it. I’m here to help you, because you need me and I need you. Call it a mutually beneficial arrangement. And that little blond ferret hanging on in the manor dungeon wants me to make sure you don’t get his mother killed before he’s even born._ ”

Harry stared. Draco appeared to be talking of himself in the third person and that just wasn’t on. He couldn’t make heads or tails of it, but… whatever it was Draco was on about, he was right. He was here now, and Harry was either too weak from expending so much of his magic, or he just didn’t know what to do to help himself with the impending Auror interrogation, but Draco was here now.

“Can you… can you do something about my memories?” Draco looked at him incredulously. “I mean—not the ones I’ve lost. I think… I think I understand the loss somehow. Sirius thinks it’s something to do with my magic, and I agree. It’s been unstable lately, working and then not working in concert with all the weird appearances and ‘overlaps’, as you call it. Anyway, I mean my memories from this morning, in the Chamber of Secrets. If I can’t do anything about it, your mother’ll certainly the one headed for Azkaban instead of me.”

Draco looked at him as if _finally_ he was using his brain in the way he was meant to. He gestured impatiently for Harry to come up to the bars again and scowled when Harry didn’t move fast enough. _“What? I told you this is how my magic works here. Or were you—you want me to do human magic?_ ” He gave a put-upon sigh. “ _Oh ye of so little faith. Very well then._ ”

Harry eyed him warily. “You don’t have a wand.”

“ _I don’t need one, you nitwit,”_ Draco huffed. “ _Now stop stalling and look into my eyes._ Legilimens _!”_

Harry felt himself suctioned into Draco’s fathomless grey eyes as the events of the morning unfolded. He saw himself waking, feeling uneasy, then realizing where he was, who he was with. He saw himself kissing Sirius—had he always looked so dopey when he looked at him? He saw them get dressed, him conjuring the mirrors, giving one of them to Sirius, along with the diadem, then him walking purposefully to Myrtle’s bathroom. He watched Myrtle and Narcissa fight over whether the ghost had seen Andromeda the night of the All Hallows Ball. He saw the entrance to the Chamber open, the basilisk’s head rearing out, Narcissa jerking back. He saw all the impossible threads of magic that he drew upon that scene to stop Time and pull Narcissa out of danger. He saw them descend to the Chamber, and find Andromeda. He saw Ginny, little eleven-year-old Ginny as she’d looked when the diary had possessed her, when Harry had been mortally afraid that that the spirit of Tom Riddle would leach out her life force. She looked different now, than she had when Harry saw her in the Chamber earlier, she glowed with an ethereal light, like she was real but… not. He saw her wink out of existence as soon as Narcissa entered the Chamber, and then Riddle-Croaker emerging, taunting them, then threatening them. He saw Narcissa draw her wand and cast the Killing Curse, fury illuminating her her entire being…

And then it stopped. The images rewound, running backwards like how videos on tape ran backwards if you pressed the rewind button, and then it stopped again and replayed. This time, he was the one yelling back to Riddle-Croaker that Andromeda was his friend, that he couldn’t just kill her for no reason. And then he cast the Killing Curse.

Draco’s eyes spat him back out into the cell and Harry sucked in a stuttering breath. “Fuck.”

Draco seemed amused by this. _“You’re such a peculiar creature, Harry Potter._ ”

Harry scowled at him. “You try watching yourself kill another person and you tell me if you wouldn’t be completely thrown.”

The enigmatic smile that touched the other man’s lips was strangely familiar. _“It gets old when you’ve done it more times than there are moons that this world has seen.”_ His smile widened when Harry’s scowl deepened. _“There’s one last thing I must ask you before one of your friends show up here._ ”

“God, don’t tell me Sirius—“

Draco shook his head. “ _Not the Grim-Seer, no. He is too distraught with feeling betrayed by his friends to do anything more than rage against them. But that’s not important. I’m sure your father will be along to tell you what’s happened to the Grim-Seer before you know it._ ”

Harry’s heart leaped to his throat. “Are they alright? Nothing’s happened to them while I’m here, right?”

Draco sighed. “ _For one who’s achieved power enough to become a god, to master Magic and bend it to your will, you’re rather thick. Your friends are alright. As I said, I’m sure one of them will show up soon. Before that happens though, you must know that your time here grows limited. I have been patient for longer than any human has a right to demand of me. Know only that when your memory and magic run out, so has your borrowed time. Use it wisely, Harry Potter. I am expecting far more from you than your miserable little life. But until then, I am the servant, and you are my Master._ ”

“But what—“ Harry could have strangled himself as he sputtered out his question. Draco was gone as if he’d never appeared.

In the distance, high up in the air, he could see a broomstick without a rider, swooping around the castle turret before swooping down on the parapet. The sound of feet landing on stone was almost entirely eaten up by the whistle of the winter winds as James Potter emerged, cheeks flushed and eyes bright from under the Invisibility Cloak.

“D—James!”

His thin face, frank and friendly and so very like Harry’s own save for the eyes and the lack of scar on his forehead, split into a wide grin. “Couldn’t let my son stay out here in the cold alone now, could I?”

“What’re you doing here?” Harry demanded. “Where’s Sirius?”

James’ eyes actually twinkled at the question. “I can’t believe you’d ask after your boyfriend before your dear old dad first!” He laughed when Harry scowled. “I’m kidding, all right? Sirius is back in the common room. He’s mad at us for snitching to McG about Croaker and Andromeda. He thinks I should’ve stopped Peter.”

“I didn’t do anything to them,” Harry told him, although it didn’t appear that he needed to explain himself. James Potter was the sort of friend who would believe in his friends rather than betray them, and he would never think ill of Harry. But then he considered. Draco had said Sirius was too distraught to come seek him out on his own because he’d felt betrayed by his friends. “Does Sirius think that you should’ve stopped Peter? You couldn’t have known that he would’ve run for a teacher as soon as he saw dead bodies, you know. And anyway, he wasn’t wrong to get McGonagall, and neither were you in not stopping him. I would’ve gotten Dumbledore myself if I hadn’t already completely worn myself out.”

James sighed and ran a hand through his messy hair, scrubbing his fingers through the back of his head to ruffle his hair up in a habit that Harry was glad he’d never picked up from his father. It made him look like such a prick, like he was too cool to have tidy hair or something of the sort.

“I don’t know. Sirius hasn’t always been particularly well-reasoned when it comes to loyalty, and well I suppose he’s really your boyfriend now, isn’t he? He’d be the first one on your side, even if he does have a weird way of showing it. He told me you two were… er… well, I guess there are some things my son does that I really shouldn’t know about.”

Harry felt heat bloom in his cheeks. Sirius had really kissed and told? To Harry’s _father_ , of all people?

“Guess I can’t make that joke anymore, can I?” he said, laughing awkwardly.

James was blushing too. “I can’t believe he was even so forward to actually—er, okay, I’ll stop talking about your and Sirius’ sex life. Merlin, that’s just… weird to say.”

“You’re asking me,” Harry said, feeling like he was about to explode if James said any more about him and Sirius.

“Well, Sirius can’t manage to keep his mouth shut if his life depended on—oh I walked right into that one didn’t I?” The two of them laughed uproariously at the sight of Harry’s violently pink ears and cheeks, because it seemed neither could James, though _not_ in the same way as Sirius, Harry hoped, or he would cease to exist altogether. 

When the laughter died down, James asked, “Do you know how long Dumbledore intends to keep you here?”

Harry shrugged. He didn’t know but he hoped it wouldn’t take much longer. Draco had given him a Warming Charm but he didn’t know how long that was going to last, and it had to at least be the late afternoon now, and he hadn’t eaten all day. He wanted a warm meal and a hot shower and maybe a few hours of uninterrupted sleep.

His stomach grumbled at that moment, choosing to remind him that that warm meal had better come soon.

“Oh!” James said, smiling. “That’s why I’m here, actually.” He fished into his pocket and brought out a slightly squashed sandwich wrapped in a napkin. “I saved some for you over lunch.”

Harry grabbed the sandwich thankfully and started eating, moaning in relief as he chewed and swallowed the food down. James passed him a flask of what he hoped was pumpkin juice, looking at him oddly.

“Is it rude to tell you while your eating that that’s exactly how Sirius told me you sounded while you two—“

“Okay, stop talking right there. I really don’t want to know any more of what you know about us.” Harry swallowed and swished down a bit of juice to wash his food down. “I’m mortified enough as it is, and if you tell me that that’s also exactly how _you_ sound when your spanking the m—“

“Okay, okay!” James said, laughing, his cheeks flaming. “Too much information!”

Harry grinned back at his father, who sat outside on the parapet to watch him eat. He was miserable, locked up here, but at least James had come to see him and brought him food, and kept him company, and that was really more than he could have expected out of the fiasco that he was in now.

Once he’d finished eating, James got up to peer over the parapet wall. “I see Aurors coming in now, with Headmaster Dumbledore. They certainly took their time about it.”

Harry sighed with relief. “At least it’ll be over soon. Whether I stay here or go to Azkaban—“

James looked at him strangely. “You are _not_ going to Azkaban for saving Narcissa’s life from that crazy teacher. If I have to get my dad—that’s your grandfather, by the way, I really ought to tell him his grandson looks exactly like the both of us, save for Evans’ eyes—that is to say, if I had to get dad to pull all the political might of our family in the Wizengamot, I will, but I assure you, no son of mine is going to end up in Azkaban.”

“Thanks, dad,” he said, suddenly feeling like he had a stone in his throat, for how it had closed up and choked his breath. “You’d better get going. I’m sure I’ll hear from Dumbledore soon.”

James nodded and mounted his broom again. He stared at Harry for a long moment, before nodding again and shrouding himself over with the Invisibility Cloak and taking off. Harry watched the broom twirl in the air for a moment before speeding down and out of sight. His father was certainly an excellent flier, if there was one thing to be learned in this strange situation.

As Dumbledore had stated, he did not allow the Aurors to take Harry away. Instead, he’d been fetched from the cell in the tower and shoved unceremoniously into the Headmaster’s Office. Two Aurors, one of whom Harry recognized as a much younger Rufus Scrimgeour, and the other as a younger Barty Crouch Senior, stood around Dumbledore’s desk on one side, and McGonagall and Slughorn, both pale-faced, on the other side. Dumbledore sat behind the desk, his expression grave. Harry wondered for a moment if it was because the Aurors were going to take him away and then he realized that it was because of a sixth presence in the room with them that he hadn’t noticed because of Draco’s Warming Charm. Behind the Aurors, a Dementor floated, silent and still and ever as terrifying a presence as he remembered them.

Crouch was talking heatedly at Dumbledore when Harry stumbled into the Headmaster’s Office. “—can’t protect a criminal here, Albus! If this Patter boy did in fact cast an Unforgivable, he needs to go to Azkaban and face his crimes. You wouldn’t be advocating this tripe if it was a Death Eater we caught now, would you?”

Dumbledore shook his head. “But there is the rub in your argument, Barty. Mr Patter is a boy, underage, and in school. He was reacting in fear for his life and the life of another student whom he desired—needed to protect. Professor Croaker had attacked them both.”

“Albus, you are getting soft,” Scrimgeour interjected, “a crime is a crime in the eyes of the law. Patter needs to abide by this and so must you.”

“You do not get to tell us that our students are criminals when they respond to lethal danger with equivalent force, Rufus,” McGonagall replied sharply.

“Perhaps,” Slughorn said tightly, “we should have our esteemed Aurors witness for themselves what had occurred for them to understand extenuating circumstances instead.”

Dumbledore nodded, and it’s now that Harry notices the Pensieve sat in the middle of the Headmaster’s desk. “Mr Patter, if you please.”

Harry stood in front of the Pensieve. He could feel cold creeping into his bones with the proximity of the dementor and he had to exert a supreme amount of effort to keep his mind from wandering to his most sordid memories of the war, of his friends dying, of _Sirius_ , his Sirius, the one from his timeline dying, of his parents—He felt as if he was having an out-of-body experience as Dumbledore pressed his wand to his temple and extracted the memory of Harry with Narcissa in the Chamber of Secrets and poured the memory into the Pensieve.

Then once again, he was forced to relive the horror that occurred earlier that day. The memory started with him entering the bathroom, but it seemed to happen differently than how he remembered it. There was no Time stop, only him dashing in to rip Narcissa away from the snake, covering her face to prevent her from looking into the basilisk’s eyes, and then using the mirror to rebound the basilisk’s stare. He watched them again descend into the Chamber. Ginny was not there at all. Harry wondered whether Draco had done more than modify his memory of the Killing Curse, because only Andromeda’s body was in the Chamber, and then there was the confrontation with Riddle-Croaker, Harry asking him who he was, Riddle-Croaker revealing himself, then threatening the two of them, and finally, Harry screaming with rage and releasing the bolt of green light that killed Croaker.

The memory ended and ejected them from the Pensieve. By this time, Harry was shaking from the shock of having to watch and rewatch and relive the events in the Chamber thrice now, each with minute differences that clouded his understanding of whatever had truly happened. He cast about around him for reaction. McGonagall was severely pale-faced and appeared faint with fear for her students. Slughorn was horrified. Scrimgeour’s sour expression when Harry had entered the office had morphed into a horror-filled sort of wonder as he stared at Harry. Dumbledore’s face remained grave, and Barty Crouch continued to look adamant and implacable.

“Well, it seems there’s nothing further to say here, Albus,” Crouch said. “The boy cast an Unforgivable. Our law states he should go to Azkaban.”

“Barty, the boy was attacked by a monstrous snake and then threatened to be fed to it!” Scrimgeour cried, horrified at what he had seen. “His friend had just died.”

“It’s the law, Rufus,” Crouch repeated, and when Scrimgeour made no move to secure Harry,he then gestured at the dementor. “Seize the boy!”

McGonagall shrieked and brandished her wand. Slughorn let out a cry as well, grabbing Harry by the shoulder to shove him away from the dementor, but the creature floated up to Harry implacably. He could feel the cold seeping into his skin, stealing over his consciousness. In the back of his mind, he could hear screaming, a boy and a girl… they sounded familiar… Ron and Hermione, he thought distantly as he felt the dementor leach his strength and steal through his mental defenses.

The dementor drew up, its hooded head bobbing, and incredibly, it stopped in front of Harry but did not touch him or attempt to suck out his soul. Instead, the creature folded on itself and bowed. When it straightened, it spoke in a voice that sounded like a chorus of all the dead that Harry knew as their memory paraded before Harry’s eyes:

“ _Death has but one Master, and his agents shall not harm he who has mastered Death._ ”

So speaking, the dementor whirled and vanished into thin air. Harry blinked as warmth rushed back into the Headmaster’s office. Crouch appeared as if he was about to explode.

He turned to Dumbledore, his bottlebrush mustache quivering as he spoke, “You’ll receive the summons from the Wizengamot on behalf of the boy.” He put his hat on, and Scrimgeour copied the gesture. “Minerva, Horace.”

And with that, they were gone. Harry continued to stare white-faced at where the dementor had bowed before him until Dumbledore dismissed the lot of them, returned Harry Narcissa’s wand, and then Slughorn had to escort him back to the dorms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have you guessed what's going on with Draco? With Harry? I feel like I dropped the ball on that in this chapter. 
> 
> I've written serious moments between Harry and Sirius, and Harry and Remus, but I haven't done anything for James yet. The scene here turned out a little more absurdist than I originally intended, but I think it works for James, who finds it just this side of odd that he has an adult son who is in a relationship with his best friend.


	16. Chapter 16

It was nothing short of amazing how Slytherins closed ranks around one of their own. Harry knew that House qualities were little more than stereotypes amplified in young children by the perpetuation of the belief that people could be reduced to one or two qualities that made them what they were despite the fact that human beings are infinitely complex creatures, and that finding commonality in their House qualities both encouraged and stunted their growth as people. One had to look no further than him to see how qualities of bravery to the point of foolhardiness, and regard for others turned into detrimental people pleasing, to see how Gryffindor qualities were encouraged to flourish to the almost complete exclusion of any other characteristics. What had Snape called him in that memory he’d imparted as he died? _A pig for slaughter_. Harry had been that all his life.

Even now, he’d thrown himself headlong into the sort of danger not even he could control, in order to protect a girl he didn’t particularly care for except in the most casual degree that she was a former classmate’s mother, that she was one of his Quidditch teammates. Whatever tied him to Narcissa before the events of the Chamber of Secrets had been forged of little more than keeping each other’s secrets. Now it had spiraled out of his control and the shadow of Azkaban loomed.

All that to say that Harry had no idea that Slytherins could be loyal in their own rights. The Hogwarts House qualities prized loyalty in Hufflepuffs. Slytherins had always been painted as opportunistic due to their ambition. But perhaps due to the common antagonism they faced against the rest of the student body from the other Houses, they protected their own zealously.

When Slughorn returned him to the Slytherin common room, he was swarmed by his house mates, all clamoring to know what sort of cruel sorcery the teachers had inflicted on him and Narcissa that they hadn’t been back until well after dinner. Harry didn’t want to stay to answer any questions. He was bone-weary from his ordeals. He’d spent nearly a full day locked in a tower, exposed to the elements, because their Head of House thought him a danger to his house mates, only to turn around and defend him when he’d seen the horrors he’d had to face to save Narcissa and even emerge out of the Chamber alive.

Harry wanted to be surprised when Lucius told the other students to back off and leave him alone. He wanted to be gobsmacked that Avery and Rosier helped him back into the dorms, that Macnair offered to keep Mulciber out of the common bathrooms while he showered. Hell, that Snape even slunk away and left him alone long enough for him to stumble through a shower and collapse, unaccosted, into bed.

He wanted to be surprised and more, but reflecting on it later when he realized he couldn’t sleep because his mind kept buzzing with thoughts of a trial in front of the Wizengamot, comprised of people who did not know him as The Boy Who Lived Twice, he realized that he’d been guilty of perpetuating the stereotypes on his own, keeping his house mates at arms length because he knew the good majority of them would grow up to be Death Eaters or sympathizers of Voldemort. It wasn’t until now that he realized that these children wouldn’t have had much of a choice because they’d never realized they even had one. The stereotypes of Slytherin house as cunning and ambitious and opportunistic simply cultivated these traits in them until they didn’t know how to be anything else.

In the morning, Snape was already out of bed when he woke. Macnair stood right outside the bed curtains of Mulciber’s bed, nodding to Harry meaningfully when he pulled back his bed curtains. Avery was in the showers and Rosier was fussing with his hair in the bathrooms when Harry stumbled in to take a piss and brush his teeth.

“Lucius wants to hold a House meeting,” Rosier told him as he approached the sinks to wash his hands and clean his teeth. “None of the professors have told us where you and Cissa had been all day yesterday and we still don’t know where Andromeda is.” Harry opened his mouth to answer, but Rosier held up a manicured hand. “Don’t tell me now and have to repeat it again later. I know you’re tired and I’m not interested in getting in your way, but Cissa and Dromeda have friends and family here and we deserve to know what happened to them. What happened to you.”

Harry looked at him strangely. “Why do you care?”

Rosier looked annoyed. “Because you’re one of us? Because if we didn’t help you and Cissa and Dromeda, who would?” He scowled when Harry continued to look baffled at the rhetorical question. “Look, Patter, I know you like to think yourself as some sort of lone wolf, skulking about alone, or chasing after Sirius and his friends, but they’re not here right now, and we are. It isn’t their fault they can’t be here, though maybe it is, because if they really wanted to, I’m sure Potter has ways and means to sneak into our dorms. And I know you’re not going to take my word for it where Potter and his friends are concerned, but unlike Slughorn, we do believe you’re one of us, and therefore deserve, if not our collective protection, then at least the loyalty of our House.”

“Is that what it was when Mulciber attacked me?” he demanded, now getting pissed off himself.

“What’s between you and Mulciber and Snape is within the House. We don’t poke our noses into fights amongst ourselves unless we’re dragged into it. But Lucius heard that Dumbledore called the Aurors on you yesterday, and that’s an outsider attacking a Slytherin where everyone is concerned, and we don’t abide by that. And don’t tell me you hadn’t been attacked. You have cuts on your face that are still healing. Why you’re here and not in the hospital wing is beyond me.”

Harry stubbornly shook his head. “I’m fine, and if you want to be fair about it, Slughorn was the one who was adamant I be kept away. There are people dead, Rosier. Dumbledore would’ve had to call in the Aurors anyway to report that.”

Rosier waved the explanation away. “Save it for the group later. No one’s leaving the dungeons until we’ve had some adequate explanation as to your disappearance.”

Harry snorted but took his advice and continued with his ablutions. When he was dressed for the day, he ascended back to the common room to find nearly half the population of the Slytherin dorm gathered. Lucius paced anxiously in the middle of the gathered group.

“Patter!” he exclaimed when he saw Harry. “Good now, you’re here. There’s been no announcement from the teachers but I heard something from the Gryffindor prefects.”

Harry sighed. That would have been Remus, possibly discussing the scene he’d come upon in Myrtle’s bathroom with Lily. It looked like there was no running away from this conversation now.

“The Chamber of Secrets was opened yesterday,” he said bluntly. “Narcissa was attacked by the monster guarding the Chamber and I happened to be passing by and managed to stop it from attacking her.”

Questions erupted loudly among the gathered group as the students looked fearfully among themselves. Clearly they were well-acquainted with the story of the Chamber of Secrets, a completely different scenario than one Harry had seen in his childhood, where even the children from some of the oldest Pureblood families like Malfoy and Nott had to listen to Professor Binns explaining the history of the Chamber.

“One by one! Ask your questions one by one!” Lucius snapped peevishly, and everyone quieted down, only to have a dozen hands raised, clamoring for their questions to be picked first and answered.

Rabastan stood and glared around to dare anyone to stop him from asking his question first. “Why would the Chamber guardian attack Narcissa? She’s a Pureblood! Are you sure it didn’t attack _you_ and she just happened to be collateral damage in the guardian’s attack on a half-blood?”

Harry glowered at him, hating the smugness that radiated from his cat-like features. “The Chamber guardian is a basilisk, and last I heard, they’re snakes and therefore not fucking sentient enough to be as bigoted as _you_. Snakes, if you had a modicum of understanding of animal biology, can’t fucking smell whose fucking fanny you dropped out of, and whether or not they were magical or muggle. They can smell magic, yes, but just _your_ magic, not your fucking parents or your ten million inbred ancestors.”

Lucius pressed a hand to his temple. “There’s no need to be rude, Patter, and Rab, if you want to be a prick, go be a prick to someone who _isn’t_ answering our questions at the moment.” He pointed at a girl from second year to ask her question next.

“Are you telling us that we’re _all_ in danger?” she asked tremulously, her eyes wide as she tried to make herself very small.

Harry’s stormy expression softened. “No. The Chamber’s closed now, and I hope it will remain closed forever.”

“Did you really kill Croaker?” a fifth year boy asked. Lucius glared at him for speaking out of turn, but he glowered right back. “We have a right to know of Patter’s going to be dangerous for the rest of us to live with.”

“In a manner of speaking,” Harry said, trying to be as plain as he could without implicating himself. “He was going to kill us and feed us to the Chamber monster. If I hadn’t, Narcissa and I wouldn’t have made it out, and the lot of you would be snake fodder.”

There seemed to be a collective sigh of relief at this statement, and Harry wondered what sort of regular state of danger these people had to constantly face in their young lives to accept the murder of a would-be attacker so casually, before Lucius pointed at Regulus.

“Where’s Cissy and Dromeda?” he asked quietly.

Harry lowered his eyes as they threatened to fill with tears all over again. He hadn’t cried yesterday; he’d needed to keep his tears in check because if he did, he knew he would break down and Narcissa needed him to be strong so she could have her breakdown over her sister.

“Narcissa’s in the hospital wing. She was hurt, but the basilisk hadn’t gotten to her, so she might be back today, I hope.” He stopped talking for a moment and didn’t dare look at Regulus’ drawn face. “I’m sorry about Andromeda. We—“ he choked and suddenly found he couldn’t stop himself from crying as the dam broke and tears spilled out the corner of his eyes. “We found her in the Chamber, but she was already dead.”

“Oh,” said Regulus. And then he stood up and walked calmly back into his dorm.

A hush fell over the crowd in the common room. It seemed Andromeda’s death hit everyone hard. Some people had started to cry. Lucinda Talkalot buried her face in her hands, as one of her dorm mates put an arm around her to comfort her.

When it seemed no one else was asking questions, Lucius asked his: “Who opened the Chamber of Secrets?”

Harry looked straight at him. “Voldemort did.”

* * *

It was a very small group of Slytherins that gathered at the Great Hall for meal times that day. A large group had skived on classes in favor of writing to their parents or staying in the dorms to mourn the loss of their friend or fellow prefect, or just in commiseration with Regulus, who hadn’t reappeared back from his room. Harry ate alone, the food tasting like dust in his mouth. He wanted to wait for Sirius, but when the Marauders emerged from Gryffindor Tower, Sirius was not with them.

James caught his eye and shook his head and gestured to the head table, where the teachers sat. McGonagall was missing, so Harry guessed that she may have taken Sirius aside to talk to him about his cousin’s death. Slughorn was also missing, but then Harry had seen him on his way out of the dungeons. The old Potions professor had looked at him with a wary sort of respect and explained that he had to go get Regulus, as Lord Black would be coming back to see his grandchildren. Apparently, the teachers saw fit to notify the old man beforethey even talked to the student body, who were the ones most affected by the deaths in the school.

Harry wanted to feel disgusted but he didn’t think it had been any different from his time when teachers fomented the gossip that constantly swirled around him, for how else would the other students know about what had happened to him if the teachers themselves who were the first to find out hadn’t talked. Perhaps, at least, this time, them being discreet would mean something to the family affected.

He found himself shying away from company, keeping to less traveled routes around the castle, and keeping his head down on the occasion that he bothered to show his face in a class. He still needed to see Sirius, and not just because Sirius had the diadem, which remained dangerous with the soul fragment intact, but also because he needed to assure himself that Sirius was okay, that he was unhurt, that the lengths Harry had gone to to stop Croaker, to trap the basilisk, to prevent Narcissa from completely breaking down or worse, imprisoned for her use of the Unforgivable, meant that Sirius was safe, that he understood that Harry truly was doing all of this _for_ him as much as he had done it for Narcissa and the rest of the student body who would have been affected if Riddle-Croaker had been left to rampage around the school with a life basilisk, just going around petrifying and killing people as he saw fit.

By evening, he was tired from the effort of avoiding people. He hadn’t seen Sirius at all, but that wasn’t surprising given that he’d traveled circuitously around the castle to avoid seeing anyone and everyone. There was also every likelihood that Sirius had been stuck in meeting his grandfather all day, or worse, that Arcturus managed to impress his will on his grandchildren and pulled them out of Hogwarts for good. Harry supposed that might even be a good thing in his goal to keep Sirius, and Remus and his parents alive. Sirius out of Hogwarts meant that he would go to some other magical school, like Beauxbaton or Durmstrang, where the threat of Voldemort’s presence was a less immediate sort of danger. He wished he could do the same for James and Lily and Remus, but James wasn’t the type to back down (he was exactly like Harry in that respect), and Lily and Remus, in all likelihood, had nowhere else to go to finish their studies.

It was a full moon that night as well, which may have explained why he had not seen any of the Marauders. It would be the first full moon that Remus had completed the course of Wolfsbane potion, and Harry sincerely hoped it helped, especially if Sirius was going to be gone.

He was still thinking about the potion as he made his way to Study Room 6 to get started on preparing the next batch, curing the ingredients he’d purchased by owl order, that he didn’t immediately realize that the room was occupied.

“Oh,” he said as Lily looked up from one of the workstations. She was bent over an iron cauldron, the steam rising from her bubbling potion making her auburn hair plaster in little tendrils of curls around her forehead and the sides of her face.

She smiled at him, a bit warily, perhaps having heard the gossip that there’d been Aurors to see him the day before. “Oh, I’m sorry, Harry. I usually use Study Room 2, but Professor Slughorn is brewing there today, and the other rooms were occupied and this was the only one empty…”

Harry shook his head awkwardly. He would have been charmed by her babbling if he wasn’t certain that she was only that way because she was afraid of him, of what he represented. A boy who’d nearly been arrested by Aurors for use of an Unforgivable curse. A boy who was only remaining in Hogwarts by the grace and protection of the Headmaster.

“No, it’s all right. I’m not going to brew anything today. I’m just… er. I have to work on some of my ingredient preparations.”

Lily nodded as she stirred her potion, and Harry, not knowing what else to say, how to diffuse the tension or reassure her that no, he hadn’t _actually_ cast the Unforgivable on their Curse-Breaking professor, he wasn’t actually a killer, simply went on in silence with curing the moonstone so that it would crush evenly when he was ready to prepare the potion in two weeks time.

Apparently, Lily couldn’t quite abide by the tension either, and she looked at where Harry was sectioning the parts of Aconite that he was going to use. “What are you making?”

He shrugged and was about to answer before he remembered that _this_ Lily wasn’t quite friends with the Marauders yet, though she and James appeared to have reached some sort of accord after the Halloween Ball, so it was unlikely she knew that Remus was a werewolf. “Experimental potion.”

“Oh,” she said, her face lighting up. Clearly, potions was a subject that excited and interested her if she was willing to talk to the boy who’d killed a teacher to find out more. “What type of experimental potion? I’m working on one too, sort of an antidote to dogbane potion. Se—someone told me it’s rather useless since no one really cares about dogs as much as other magical pets like owls, but our dog at home passed away last summer, and I just miss her terribly and thought I’d work on something that reminded me of her.”

Harry stopped cutting the aconite to gape at her open-mouthed for a moment. He wanted to beg her for more information, what else did she like? What was her dog’s name? Was she her first dog? What was the breed? Did Lily walk her in the mornings and evenings when she was home for the summer? All sorts of insignificant questions that meant the world to Harry because he’d never gotten to know his parents at all in his timeline.

Lily didn’t appear to notice him staring as she went on talking. “She’s not even _my_ dog, Tabitha isn’t. She’s my sister’s dog, but she’s just such a cuddly little thing, you couldn’t help but love her.” She smiled distractedly, apparently having completely forgotten now about her wariness over Harry. “I’m more of a cat person, really, but we found out Tuney’s allergic to them when I brought a stray home once, before I started Hogwarts.”

“I—I had an owl,” Harry stuttered when she stopped talking to smile at him as if to say it was his turn to tell her about himself. He wondered what sort of life he would have led if Lily had lived, would have been filled with cats and experimental potions to heal them of imagined hurts because he had a mother who would love them as much as he did? He wondered if he would have grown up well-adjusted instead of the troubled, depressed and bitter man he had become. “She died when… she died.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. It’s always hard when our pets leave us. Mum told me Tuney didn’t stop crying over Tabitha until two weeks after school started. If we pooled our pocket money though, she and I could get another dog from the pound together by next summer, so I’m hoping she can hold out on me until then.”

Harry hung on her every word. “That’s… I think that’s wonderful of you.”

She smiled at him again, her left cheek dimpling slightly. Her freckles, which he had as well in abundance, around his cheeks and nose, the one other gift he inherited from his mother apart from her eyes, made her look much younger than she actually was. “Thanks. That’s really nice of you to say, Harry. Even James said so, and he’s usually a complete berk about Slytherins. I don’t know why there’s all this… these awful rumors about you.”

“Oh,” Harry lowered his eyes and tried to concentrate on his task. “Well, there’s a bit of truth in them, whatever people are saying, I guess.”

“Did you really use an Unforgivable? On a teacher?” she asked, horrified.

“He was… I suppose the best way to describe it was that he was possessed, and he was going to kill Narcissa if I didn’t do anything.”

She frowned at him. “But what about a Shield Charm? That would have been more than enough to protect her from most offensive spells.”

Harry shook his head. “Not from the spell favored by the person that possessed him.”

She gasped. “Do you mean—?”

“Yeah. It was him. Voldemort.” A whisper. “And he truly only favors one spell. Shield charms wouldn’t work on it.”

“H-how?”

Harry adjusted his glasses nervously. He didn’t want to lie, but he didn’t want to tell her the truth either. If he could preserve his mother from ever knowing about things as vile as Horcruxes, he would. It was bad enough that he’d had to tell Sirius, who then had to tell James. Lily didn’t need her existence sullied by the knowledge. “Croaker had come across some artifact that he’d bewitched. It possessed him and broken him completely.”

She nodded somberly. “Remus told me Andromeda died.”

“Yeah,” Harry replied, choking up all over again even after he’d told himself when he’d ended up crying in that House meeting earlier, that he wouldn’t cry again. “Croaker killed her while he was possessed. He used the monster in the Chamber of Secrets.”

“Oh god, I’m so sorry,” said Lily, her voice falling. “That’s… I don’t know what to say. I didn’t even know she was your friend. When I heard James and Remus talking last night, I thought they were just talking about rumors of the Chamber. But to hear that it’s true, and that… Oh, it’s just been so terrible, lately!”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

She shook her head, her eyes shining, and she busied herself with casting a Stasis spell on her potion for a moment, Harry guessed, to keep her emotions from getting the better of her. “Just what’s been in the papers. People disappearing, and muggles getting attacked by You-Know-Who and his people. It’s awful! I had to stop getting the Prophet delivered home over the summer after dad saw the front page news on Mr Bones and his family. I’d told him about Philip before—we’re partners in Herbology—and he almost wouldn’t let me go back to school after the summer. He makes me write home now, every other day, just to make sure I’m still okay.”

“I don’t think you have anything to really worry about while you’re at school,” Harry said. “Sirius told me Dumbledore protects the castle like a fortress.”

“I’m sure he does,” Lily said, the voice of practicality and reason, “but what about after? We can’t just cower in the school forever. No one deserves to live in such a perpetual state of fear, and that’s what You-Know-Who’s doing to the wizarding population.”

“There are people fighting to protect everyone from him and his Death Eaters.”

Lily scoffed. “What, you mean the Aurors? They’re in a constant state of responding only when it’s too late that at the rate they’re moving, there’d soon be no one left to respond to. You-Know-Who would’ve gotten to everyone, and either killed them or intimidated them into joining him. Someone has to fight against him, fire by fire, underground if they have to.”

Harry eyed his mother, the steely glint in her green eyes as she spoke. He definitely could see what had attracted his father to her, the fire in her voice, the strength of her convictions, her compassion for the people who got hurt or killed. Harry thought she reminded him of Hermione so much in that sense. “Are you planning on joining them? These people fighting Voldemort?”

“I don’t think I want to do anything else,” she told him. “I can’t live with myself if I had to live in the sort of perpetual state of fear that he’s trying to instill in everyone else. _Someone_ has to stop him. If it had to be me, if I had to be part of that movement, I wouldn’t say no.”

Harry wished she wouldn’t say that because there’d be a time in the future where she _would_ be the one who would stop Voldemort. Only she would lose her life in doing so. “James and Sirius and Remus plan to join a group after school to do just that…” he hedged and wondered if he really should be pushing her into danger in this way. But he didn’t think he could live with himself if he let her muddle about on her own after she finished Hogwarts, and not have any direction in what to do, how to fight for her freedom to be a witch with muggle parents, if he didn’t tell her.

“They are?”

He nodded. “Yeah. I think… maybe if you talked to James, kept close to him, he’d tell you the details.”

“Would you join yourself?”

Harry looked at her directly in the eye and found he couldn’t lie. “I’m already part of it.”

“I see,” she said, nodding. “Well, I hope, for your sake, this business about Professor Croaker doesn’t stop you from doing what’s right, what’s good.”

“It won’t. I won’t let it.”

She smiled. “You’re a good guy, Harry. I guess I hope we could fight together, but you don’t strike me as the type of person looking for a partner in crime.” She grinned impishly.

“Yeah, Rosier told me I’m more of a lone wolf. I don’t really know what that means, but I guess I could see it. I’ve really just learned how to work alone most of the time.”

“I can see that,” she said, nodding. And then she busied herself with clearing up on her workstation. “Hey, you haven’t told me what it was exactly you were trying to brew.”

Harry thought for a moment and reached for some parchment and quill, which he found in one of the cabinets under the table. “I’m er… trying to find a cure for lycanthropy. Only I don’t think what I’ve got is a cure. It’s more a… how do you say it? Something to ease the symptoms.” He scribbled the formula and the brewing and ingestion instructions on the parchment. “Here, you can have a look.”

She scanned the ingredients and the directions he’d provided. “Hmm, aconite and moonstone? I suppose that could work… Hey, I need to get back outside to meet with the other prefects, but do you mind if I keep this? I might be able to help you.”

He nodded eagerly. “If it’s all the same for you, even if you can’t improve the formula, I expect I might have to… be away from school, you know for the trial and all. Do you think you could brew this for me while I’m away? I’ve got most of the ingredients right here and Slughorn gave me permission to take from the school stores if I’m missing anything.”

“Of course,” she told him. “But what would you need it for?”

He shrugged. “Oh, nothing. James is… he’s the one who asked for it. If you manage to brew it, can you give it to James? He’d know what to do with it.”

“Sure, Harry,” she said kindly. “It’d be awful nice if this potion actually worked, and it’d be even nicer of James if he was actually distributing this to werewolves in need of it.”

He smiled back at her for the first time without feeling like a complete fool. “He is. Nice, that is.” He hoped his father better appreciate all he was doing for him.

She nodded, and briskly took up her book bag. “Well, it was nice talking to you, and for what it’s worth, I’m sorry about all the trouble you’re having, with people talking about Andromeda and Professor Croaker all day.”

He waved at her and watched her leave, wondering if he’d done the right thing in telling his mother about the Order of the Phoenix, or if he’d just condemned her to die all over again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I stan a savage Harry Potter whenever talking to baby Death Eaters, and a soft one when talking to the people he loves.


	17. A 2017 Interlude

When Draco woke next, he was in his bedroom, dressed in pajamas he hadn’t worn in a very long time, having spent most of his moments unconscious and drunk and wearing whatever clothes he’d worn the day prior. The dream he’d had was the most peculiar thing, of Potter and his mother, sitting in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom. He shuddered in revulsion, remembering the fear and despair he’d felt the last time he’d actually been in that bathroom, when Potter had sliced him up like Christmas ham with a spell so dark, it was impossible that Potter had ever known what it did.

But it wasn’t thememory of Potter’s attack on him that troubled him. In his dream, his aunt, Andromeda Tonks, whom Draco had managed to cultivate a cordial relationship, thanks in no small part to Astoria’s prodding, so that he could get to know and become close with his young cousin, Teddy Lupin, had died in the Chamber of Secrets, her body carried out into Myrtle’s bathroom by the magic of his teenage mother. It was absurd, that Potter should be with his mother in her younger years. Perhaps that hadn’t even been Harry Potter at all, if Draco had to be logical about it. After all, didn’t everyone tell Potter that he looked exactly like his father? Perhaps that had been James Potter, though for the life of him, Draco couldn’t fathom why he would be with his mother. Certainly in all the years Draco had known her, his mother had never once mentioned having spent any time in the company of the man. If anything, she’d been quite disgusted by him being a blood traitor, and convincing her cousin, Sirius, to turn away from his family.

He puzzled this over long and hard as she showered and cleaned himself up, and made himself presentable.

The owl missive he sent to Headmistress McGonagall was short and to the point, requesting an audience to check on his cousin. He wouldn’t spend much time, only that he needed to ascertain that the boy was all right. He hadn’t checked in with Teddy in a while now, so consumed was he first by fixing the Time Turner, and when Potter absconded with it, by getting completely and utterly wasted, until he’d learned of his mother’s illness. Now that he knew it was only a matter of time for his mother, he needed to ascertain that his cousin, now in working an apprenticeship in Mastery in Transfiguration with the Headmistress, wasn’t next.

He took the Floo to the Headmistress’ office. McGonagall smiled as he emerged from the hearth, calling for a house elf to request for tea.

“I must apologize, Mr Malfoy,” she said pleasantly. “It appears you and my owl may have just crossed paths that you did not receive my response immediately, otherwise, it would have saved you a trip.”

Draco nodded his greeting and took off his tall wizard hat. “No apologies needed, Headmistress, since I’m the one currently imposing on your time. If it’s alright that I can visit my cousin if he’s not busy with a class or a project?’

McGonagall appeared mystified. “Yes, as I told you in my letter, there’s no student or faculty here by the name of Edward Remus Lupin. I would have saved you the trip had I been faster with penning my response.”

Draco frowned. “But… I’d just seen him here not two months ago! He’d stayed at the manor, him and Aunt Andromeda, to spend the easter.”

“Mr Malfoy,” McGonagall said, looking concerned. “Are you quite all right?”

Draco drew to his full height, feeling affronted. “Should I not be?”

“Well… you’ve been mentioning names of students whom we’ve not had in Hogwarts since… well, since the time of your parents.”

Draco felt suddenly as if his heart stopped. “What?”

“There was only one Andromeda in the register of students in Hogwarts for the past three hundred years. Her name was Andromeda Black, your mother’s sister. She died in 1977, a tragedy to be sure. The professor who had killed her had himself been killed in self-defense by one of our students. It is true that she had been in school at around the same time as Mr Lupin, and there had been another boy by the name of Edward Tonks at the time they were both in Hogwarts, but that is all that I can tell you with the names you’ve mentioned in your letter.”

Draco couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t even support himself standing up and collapsed unceremoniously on the chair across McGonagall’s desk. “Wh—how can this happen?”

McGonagall looked at him kindly. “I’m sorry, you may not have known. Your mother was very attached to her, and when she passed, I understand the memory might have been too painful for your mother and she might not have wanted to speak on it very often.”

“I—yes, I didn’t know.” He tried to still his thudding heart. Could it be true? Could Potter truly have made it back into the past, and changed the present now with his actions there? “Headmistress, what about the boy I asked? Edward Remus Lupin, you remember him, surely. Professor Lupin’s son?”

“Are you sure you don’t mean Emmeline Hope Lupin? I assure you, Mr Lupin had a daughter, not a son, and you would better find her at the Ministry. As I understand, Ms Lupin wanted to follow in the footsteps of her Auror mother.”

“Mother?” he gasped, the enormity of the situation seeming to crash down on him. Maybe he was pinning his hopes on Potter too much. After all, Nymphadora Tonks, the cousin whom Draco had never met, the one who married Lupin, had been an Auror too before she died.

“Why Emmeline Vance, of course! She’d only recently retired from the corps, and as I understand, undertakes private tutoring sessions on dueling now instead.”

 _But Emmeline Vance is dead!_ Draco wanted to scream. He’d never met her, but he remembered her death distinctly because it had been one of the very first missions Draco had been brought along with the Death Eaters. It was just after he’d been Marked, and there had been a strike force organized to attack the Muggle government in London. Draco had been ordered to observe, and he distinctly remembered she had been among the wizard detail of the Muggle head of government. Draco remembered very well that it had been Travers’ attack that had cut her down as Greyback had laughed uproariously when he’d lost his dinner after Travers had blown Vance to pieces.

“H—how is this—“

“Mr Malfoy, are you sure you’re quite all right?” McGonagall asked. For the life of him Draco could not understand why the Headmistress was even being so kind. She’d been wary of him when he’d returned to the school to do his penance, and her demeanor whenever he’d visited Teddy had been nothing but cold. “You’re looking quite faint. Perhaps if you’d prefer a hot toddy instead of tea?”

Draco shook his head, ashen-faced from his discovery and still teetering on his feet as he stood. “Headmistress, would you mind terribly if… if I took a walk in the grounds to clear my head? I… I think I may just need some air to get my head screwed back straight.”

McGonagall smiled kindly at him. “Of course, Mr Malfoy. The students should still be in their classes, and as long as you do not disturb any ongoing class, you’re perfectly welcome to stay the afternoon.”

Draco took the long way out of the Headmistress’ office, his mind whirring distractedly as he let his feet dictate his destination. He was so lost in thought that he never noticed he’d headed for the Slytherin common room, an unconscious habit borne of spending seven years in the castle, and collided head first with a with Gryffindor boy with long dark hair. The boy started back and then he stared, surprised at first, and then belligerent.

“You!” he yelled, shoving Draco back with one hand.

Draco stared. He’d never met this boy before! Who was he that he needed to be rude for what had obviously been an accident? “Do I know you?”

The boy scowled up at him. For some reason he couldn’t place, Draco thought he looked vaguely familiar. “Don’t give me this bullshit, you damn well know who I am, and I’m warning you now, Malfoy, you are dead and gone. Harry is mine, so stay away from him!”

With that statement, the boy shoved past him and barreled down towards the dungeons. Draco stared after him as he disappeared into a corner and wondered at the statement that he was dead and gone. He’d heard it mentioned more than once, in the strange dreams he’d had about Potter. What was it that Sirius Black had told Potter in his dream? That Draco had died in the basement of the manor, having hung himself out of depression after his parents died and he had no one left?

He was still puzzling it over by the time he Flooed back home, and it was only then that he was able to place the boy’s face. That kid he’d collided with, that had been so rude and told him he was dead… that had been exactly what Sirius Black had looked like in his dreams of Potter.

Heart in his throat, Draco strode down the empty corridors of the manor, until he found the concealed staircase that led down into the basement. Once upon a time, the basement had been dungeons, used by the Dark Lord to hold his prisoners for torture during the war. Draco still distinctly remembered when Snatchers had caught Potter and his friends, and the daring escape they’d mounted that resulted in Draco losing his hawthorn wand to Harry for the first time. The second time had been given as a gesture of good faith, when Potter had broken his own wand fighting Death Eaters. He’d received a single note that simply said “Thanks” for his trouble, but that had been enough.

The bars that had been used to create cells in the dungeons had been torn down after the war. Astoria had been adamant in redecorating and removing any remnants of the horror that Draco had had to live through, and that included converting the dungeons into some other functional room. Mostly now, it was an extension of the wine cellar, as the Malfoy’s elf-made wine had experienced a resurgence in popularity after Lucius’ house arrest ended. Draco never ventured down there, feeling the memory of the place too strong to scrub out with redecorating. It had been the same thing with the manor dining room, the no-man’s land.

When he opened the door to the cellar, the first thing that struck him was the strange cloying smell. Usually, the store rooms for the wine smelled faintly like wood from the barrels they were stored, but on occasion a hint of the flowery scent of the wine would permeate out. The smell in here wasn’t sweet or woodsy. It was cloying and overwhelming and a smell that brought Draco back into the war. It was the smell of death.

He would his way around the stacked barrels of wine until he came upon the center of the room, where an upended chair stood, neglected. Above that, hanging from the beams that held up the ceiling, a blond man was trussed up, the noose around his neck cutting deeply into pale skin. The man was obviously dead but he was not decomposing. Hypostasis had set in with visible ruptures in the blood vessels on his hands , wrists and fingertips.

Draco stared up in horror as the face of the hanged man mirrored his own. And then the eyes snapped open, and the hanged man smiled, a terrible, wicked smile that tugged at the threads of mortality that connected Draco to his life.

“ _Finally, Draco Malfoy! I’ve been hanging here for years waiting for you to realize you’re not quite dead but certainly dying. Now we can get on with our wager._ ”

“Wh-what wager?” Draco demanded of this otherworldly creature that looked and talked exactly like him, but was manifestly _not_ him, otherwise who would _he_ be?

“ _Why the wager we made to turn back Time, of course_ ,” Death answered patiently. “ _Or do you not remember begging me for your miserable little life when you realized you were not quite ready to die? No? Let me refresh your memory then._ ”

Death snapped his fingers then and the noose disappeared, and now he was standing in front of Draco, wearing the same face, the same hair, the same fucking smug expression Draco used to have as a child when he dealt with Potter.

“ _Ah Draco, don’t look so worried. No matter which way you look at it, whether you win or lose the wager, you still win! Did you not bargain with me not to lose your life in your inane attempt to end it by pinning your hopes on Harry Potter? You didn’t want to die just yet, not when you’d had an epiphany as to the cause of your magical plague, and I told you I would grant you the life you desired if your champion managed to stem the tide of destruction wrought on magic that caused the plague you see now. And you told me there’s only one person in the whole wide world who could accomplish even a sliver of success in the insurmountable quest of fixing the rift in the fabric of magic. You do remember this, don’t you? Would be a pity if you’d forgotten, seeing as you’re the only one who’d ever realized that the cause of you magical plague is the only one who can fix it._ ”

Death looked utterly delighted at his confused expression. _“Ah, don’t worry about it, old chap. Dying makes quick work of our memories. You don’t start to regain them until you’re actually dead. But look at it this way: you’re still winning in our bargain! Harry Potter, against all magical and realistic odds, is still alive, and even changing Time as you know it. Did you see the Time Stop spell he performed? And all quite instinctual. I quite like him, you know. He’s powerful beyond measure, ripping dimensions of existence in ways no one had ever managed, or even imagined. Of course, seeing as how he caused these rips across dimensions by not dying to begin with, I suppose you’re thinking he better damn well fix it. I’m quite certain he can even though he asks for so little help when there’s so much to be had. For a Master of Death, he’s not particularly demanding. I may keep him alive just yet, if he keeps helping me gather all the little pieces of my lost treasure._ ”

He grinned impishly at Draco, showing him that one crooked tooth in the back of his mouth that Draco’s father had had magically fixed at St Mungo’s before Draco turned thirteen, so he wouldn’t be embarrassed by his smile. _“I do so love a good treasure hunt, and this Harry Potter bloke is rather entertaining. You were right to bet on him, Draco Malfoy. He has become… something of a god. I quite like it, don’t you?_ ”

“If I’m… dying… is anything that I’ve been experiencing now real?”

“ _Oh, it’s real enough,_ ” Death answered. “ _Everything that can be thought of as a possibility can be real in one realm of existence or another. If you’re asking me whether the death of your wife and child, and the Magical Consumption plague is real, of course it is. It was real in the timeline that your Harry Potter left behind.If it had been any other human that traveled through Time had gone it his stead, it would continue to be real. Time is a constant. Things that happened have already happened and it is impossible to have made them happen any other way, even with the puny magics you humans have devised to control Time. But as you have already seen in your ‘dreams’, your Harry Potter is not quite like any ordinary human._ ”

“Why… _How_ have all of these things happened? How did Potter make it happen?” He had so many questions he wanted to ask. If Astoria and Scorpius’ deaths were real, what about his mother’s illness? His father’s depression? What about Andromeda Tonks disappearing? Teddy Lupin not existing? What about the war?

Death tossed his head impatiently. _“I rather liked you_ before _you tried to kill yourself. You’re a smart man, Draco Malfoy. Your people think you’re somedepressed recluse wallowing in the former glory that’s been stripped unceremoniously from your family. Everyone who’s encountered you in your adult life thinks you’ve gone round the bend when your child died. But sometimes, those_ touched _by Death are the ones who understand, who see clearly the why and how of events unfolding, than those not. Yes, your family dying was real. Yes, your mother falling ill, succumbing to the Consumption was real. Yes, your father soon followed her. And yes, the war_ did _happen._

 _“All of it occurred in the timeline that you and your Harry Potter have lived. But your Harry Potter is a stone cutting through the stillness of placid waters, one whose mere presence at any point in Time not only creates ripples, but entire tsunami, capable of changing the landscape of Time, of laying waste to it. Once every few millennia, we have creatures such as him, ones whose very existence causes tears in the fabrics of existence. Harry Potter was forged in the blood and sacrifice of his mother’s love. That he did not die the first time he’d been killed was a happy accident in the reality of_ your _world. But that in which phenomena such as I reside and exist? He has been a catastrophe of proportions so epic, some of us have ceased to function in the manner with which we must exist._

 _“He has torn through Magic and ripped through Time, making and unmaking them both to the vagaries of his whim and choosing. He has bound and mastered_ me _at a moment I could not have imagined being enslaved. That he has not chosen to destroy us all and make Life itself impossible to exist in all instances of Time is something we can only be grateful for, that he has not turned into the all-powerful capricious god of Chaos._

_“Once upon a time, he may have been ordinary, in the manner by which you are an ordinary human. But once his mother bound him with Love and Sacrifice? The most powerful of all esoteric beings such as you cannot imagine? No, you were right, what you called him before he ripped through Time and Space and Magic and Death. Your Harry Potter has been forged into a god, an unlearned one to be sure, for he still believes himself human despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. And like every god made of a man, he will stomp through the laws that hold together existence and make or unmake that which constitutes beings such as I in his desire to change your world, resulting in either the destruction of constructs that make creatures such as us real, or righting all the wounds that have made us weak._

_“You’ve been wise to have chosen him, Draco Malfoy. And I rather like being_ me _enough that I am willing to help him muddle his way through to healing the wounds he’d caused. What a world would look like free of Harry Potter is something not even_ I _in my knowledge of the infinite can know, for your Harry Potter desires to be human, to_ act _human in your world of mundane physicalities, and to be human is to be an agent of Chaos. The type of Chaos he will wrought upon us all I suppose hides in the heart that decides to beat as any human’s would. We can all only be thankful that he continues to bind himself in the rational understanding of the natural world or that destruction of which I speak would surely come to pass.”_

Death smiled kindly at him now, making Draco’s grey eyes on him feel warm despite the frigidness of the underground cellar. _“Come now, let’s stop this discussion of death and destruction. You must think it an oxymoron, being that I_ am _Death, but it gets tiresome at some point in the infinity I’ve existed to keep talking about myself. It’s more fun to watch what your champion decides to do with the fate of the world, don’t you think?”_

Draco whimpered, not quite knowing how else to respond, and he realized that anyway, he wouldn’t be able to. Death had strung him up on the noose and he was the one hanging now. Now all he could do was watch the scenes that Death granted him leave to see in his mind’s eye unfold and hope that some way, somehow, Harry Potter could still come through.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the shortest chapter I'd written for this fic so far. It was originally part of a longer chapter, but then I realized I was digging my grave writing all the shit that Death tells Draco and decided to make this chapter as a sort of interlude, a commercial of sorts. 
> 
> You know that feeling when you watch anime that tries to go for deep and esoteric themes, but when you watch it, it feels a lot like just mumbo jumbo that don't make sense? That's what this chapter is, and every time I reread it to catch any continuity errors it may have caused with the previous chapters, I feel like I just failed all my classes on the Philosophy of Man and Philosophy of Religion all over again.
> 
> On the other hand, I do like the idea of Draco Malfoy as Death, hanging around watching the world burn, a tub of popcorn in one hand, and a tall glass of Coke in the other. He probably slurps, which would mortify the _real_ Draco Malfoy beyond measure.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: There's a slur somewhere at the start of this chapter.

With the Slytherins closing ranks around Harry and Narcissa once she was released from the hospital wing, Harry didn’t get to see Sirius at all the entire day. He realized, as he lay in bed, unable to sleep late that night, that he was rapidly getting obsessed with his godfather’s young teenage incarnation. There were a dozen other things to worry about: the upcoming trial with the Wizengamot, the threat of potentially being sent to Azkaban, Malfoy and his weird pronouncements, working over whether he’d condemned his mother to die by encouraging her to join the Order, finding the other Horcruxes in spite of all the shit he’d landed himself in… The list went on. Harry felt he ought to really be thinking about a great many grander things that what his prick was mostly yearning for right now.

To be fair to himself, Harry had been celibate for a rather long time, much longer than he himself was aware of given all the gaps in his memory of his life within his own timeline. He’d been so depressed and focused on dying for so long, he hadn’t thought of his own body’s needs short of fulfilling basic physiological needs.

Now though, he couldn’t stop thinking about… well, about the blow job Sirius had given him before everything had gone to shit. He was fairly certain he was over whatever dissonance he felt over fucking his godfather, who was years and years younger than him, although he couldn’t particularly rationalize why. He wasn’t even going to touch the fact that the attraction he felt to Sirius was leagues different from how he understood himself—heterosexual, for one—with a ten foot pole. Perhaps that was just the way brains were wired when overloaded with oxytocin. He supposed it wouldn’t have mattered so much, or that he wouldn’t feel like a bitch in heat in bed at that moment if he’d managed to even snatch a few moments to be with Sirius any time that day.

As it was, he’d snapped his bed curtains closed when all the other boys in the dorms had finally retreated to their own beds, and waited for the sounds of motion to die down before he took his wand to cast a Silencing charm. He probably just needed a quick wank to get his mind out of the gutter and focus on More Important Things, and he would have done exactly that if he didn’t feel the edge of his bed curtains rustle, and then the room buzzed with the sharp crackle of the chain lightning spell, followed by a hissed curse and the thud of someone’s buttocks hitting the floor.

Harry snapped to his feet, whipping his bed curtains aside to catch his would-be assailant, only to find Rosier clutching his burned hand and staring at an empty spot on the floor.

“Buggering fuck, this is the last time I’m helping you with anything, you fucking blood traitor poof,” Rosier snarled, shaking from the undoubtedly sharp shock of electricity that had coursed through him as he clutched his hand to his chest.

The patch of floor he’d been yelling at parted to reveal an Invisibility Cloak-clad Sirius, rubbing his bum where he had fallen, apparently thrown by the force of the curse Harry had placed on his bed. He grinned sheepishly at Harry before scowling up at Rosier for the slur.

“And what the fuck, Patter, you paranoid little shit,” Rosier hissed angrily. “Who the fuck puts a sodding lightning curse on their bed curtains?”

“Er, safety precautions,” Harry muttered, snapping his fingers to send a Healing charm at the boy’s injured hand, before reaching over to haul Sirius to his feet.

“Sorry,” Sirius said, not sounding sorry at all.

Rosier rolled his eyes, but held his healed hand out to inspect it in the gloom, nodding only when he was sure there was no lingering damage. “Remember this, Black. You owe me.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sirius replied carelessly, slinking into Harry’s bed. Harry, not quite believing his luck, followed wordlessly, shutting the curtains around them and following it up with that Silencing charm he’d planned on anyway before he rounded on Sirius.

“What the hell?” he demanded, patting Sirius down to inspect that _he_ hadn’t been damaged by the curse. Sirius leered lasciviously at him and he scowled, all previous thoughts of wanking to Sirius forgotten in light of what his godfather had just risked getting into the dorm with him. “What are you doing here?”

Sirius sobered up, and even in the gloom and with Harry’s terrible eyesight, he could see that whatever Sirius had to say was important. “Couldn’t wait until tomorrow to tell you—Grandfather’s arranged Andromeda’s funeral tomorrow.”

“And you couldn’t… I don’t know, ask Regulus or Narcissa to tell me?”

Sirius shook his head. “I’m not supposed to know. He talked to them separately. They’ll be pulled out of Hogwarts by the end of the winter term, before the holidays. I overheard Reg telling Rabastan before Grandfather called to tell me I’m being disowned.”

Fuck. Well, that wasn’t surprising anyway. Harry already knew that had happened to Sirius, even in his timeline. He thought that had already been the case since Sirius supposedly had run away from home the summer before Harry arrived. Maybe this was just a formality.

“I need you to take me to the funeral,” he said softly. “Andromeda’s maybe my only remaining relative still talking to me. No, I know you think Regulus and Narcissa are fine with the two of us being together, but they’re only acting this way because I’ve already chosen to break away from them, from my family. If I was still in the ‘Black fold’, Narcissa’d probably have your bollocks for even glancing at me sideways.”

Harry shook his head, wondering if Sirius even knew how terrified Narcissa had been when she’d told him she’d seen Sirius die in the Room of Hidden Things. Maybe Sirius’ anger at his brother and cousin were severely misplaced. Both Regulus and Narcissa had as much assured Harry that if they’d found him wanting, they would never have let him anywhere close to Sirius, regardless of the fact that Sirius had chosen to distance himself from them.

“Anyway,” Sirius continued, his eyes shining in the curtain-filtered eerie green gloom that permeated the Slytherin dorms as he stared up at Harry, his voice hoarse as he spoke, “McGonagall knows I haven’t been told about the funeral at all, so she won’t let me out of school to go. I have to though. Andromeda’s the only one in my family who’s ever been kind to me, ever since I Sorted in Gryffindor.”

Harry touched Sirius face, silently surprised at how he’d completely missed that Sirius had been quite attached to Andromeda. The Sirius in his timeline had told him that she was one of the only two people in his family he’d kept contact with after completely breaking away, aside from his Uncle Alphard who’d bequeathed him money to live on after Hogwarts. But because Sirius had been in Azkaban, his name never properly cleared until after he’d died, after the war, he’d never gone to see his cousin at all. The Sirius before him now wasn’t that lost, angry, bitter man that he remembered, but a boy who was missing a woman who’d likely been like an older sister to him.

Sirius closed his eyes and leaned into his touch, and Harry felt a tear escape the tight dam that Sirius erected to bottle up his feelings splash onto his thumb. “I need to see her, Harry, just… just one last time, so I don’t remember just her cold dead body in a ruined bathroom.”

“Of course,” Harry whispered, leaning close to kiss his cheek, a chaste touch of skin to seal a promise. “I can Apparate us before breakfast and no one’ll be the wiser.”

Sirius let out a quiet sob of relief as Harry drew him close. “Come on, we should sleep now, if we’re to leave early.”

It took a long time for Sirius to quiet down, but Harry held him until eventually, the soft sobs gave way into the even deep breathing of sleep, and Harry let the sound of that lull him into oblivion.

They woke before dawn and moved stealthily around the dorm to make themselves presentable. Harry had to lend Sirius some clothes as Sirius apparently didn’t have the foresight to think to pack his own before he’d sneaked out of bed to go to the dungeons. Harry then bundled Sirius up in the Invisibility Cloak and the two of them sneaked out of the Slytherin common room, past a bunch of seventh year students who’d fallen asleep in front of the fire cramming for the upcoming term end exams that were to be their preparatory tests before they took the NEWTs in June.

This early out, the Great Hall was empty. Harry worried they might encounter Filch on the way out, but the two of them managed to waltz right past the gates without encountering a soul.

The Black Family Crypt was on a plot of land near the manor that was the seat of Arcturus’ power in Cornwall. The manor was set in the backdrop of a towering cliff dropping off into the choppy waters of the Celtic Sea. Harry thought the Black family’s sense of the dark and dramatic had begun and ended with Grimmauld Place and its awful snake-themed gothic gloom, but the manor that rose above the grassy plain looked the sort of old terrifying haunted castle that fit better in a horror film than in real life. A tall hedge maze covered the grounds, likely added to the manor’s defenses against Muggles, although what Muggles would wander near such a decrepit looking old castle that looked utterly remote from any center of civilization stumped even Harry and he knew the sort of odd places the Muggles went to after Uncle Vernon had driven the Dursleys and Harry to the utter ends of the earth to avoid the Hogwarts owls when Harry first got his Hogwarts acceptance letter.

Black Manor looked like the sort of place people avoided going for fear of falling into some gateway into hell or other, so remote and utterly and irrevocably _alone_ it felt standing in the middle of bumfuck nowhere and surrounded on three sides by the crashing icy waters of the Celtic Sea, and on the fourth, nothing but flat plain green that led down to the crypt, which was further inland, standing in solemn white marble next to a small family graveyard dotted with Celtic crosses and tombstones.

The crowd of wizards gathered in the graveyard was small and intimate and Harry, for a moment, felt like he was intruding on a private moment reserved for the grieving family. He cast a sidelong glance at Sirius, who strode through the ornate wrought iron arch of the graveyard with silent purpose as if he had every right to be there. Sirius was dry-cheeked, but his eyes were red-rimmed. His long hair whipped around his face angrily, as if the cold sea air was determined to mirror the storm in his eyes, the too-long robes he borrowed from Harry swirled ominously behind him, like the sleek wings of a magnificent giant bat. He looked the picture of the cold, unfeeling Pureblood, perfectly at ease in the gathering they were gate-crashing.

“You!” a woman from the crowd shrieked as soon as she saw the two of them approach. Her face was thin, tight around the eyes, with a thin straight nose and pale lips half-hidden behind a sheer black veil that hung from the black feathered hat perched on her tightly coiffed black hair. Beside her, a man who looked almost exactly like Sirius, the Sirius Harry remembered before he died in his timeline, stood, wand in his hand. Harry tensed, his magic curling around his cold fingers, itching for a fight.

“Good morning, Mother,” Sirius said, his voice clipped, bitter and icy as the spray of salt water that whipped in the cold air. “I’ve come to pay my last respects to my cousin. I’d rather not fight, if it’s all the same to you.”

“Why are you here, Sirius?” the man, whom Harry could only guess was Orion Black, Sirius’ father, asked in a voice dripping with disdain and malice. “You’ve renounced our family. No one wants you here.”

“Neither do I want to be in your company, Father, but my cousin deserves a final goodbye before she’s consecrated into the ground.”

“And you dare bring that… that filthy half-blood that attacked her?” Walburga demanded, pointing a crooked finger at Harry’s face. “Of all the faithless, ungrateful nerve you have to bring this monster—“

“Stop!”

The commotion died instantly and Harry was treated to how the entire family, before hurling shouted insults at him and Sirius as they approached, deferred without question to the will of Lord Black. Arcturus stood near a cluster of chairs occupied by the younger members of the family Black, Narcissa and Regulus, both bare-faced and in somber black robes, and Bellatrix behind them, her mass of wild black hair tamed and pinned down with a feathered hat similar to the one Walburga wore. She dressed differently from the conservative look adopted by her blond sister, her dress robes, though also black, was fashionable and ostentatious. Her hands dripped with glittering bejeweled rings. Evidently, her betrothal to the Lestranges made her a very rich woman. Still further away, Mafalda, and a boy who looked like he could be James’ and Harry’s cousin, sat a little aways from their mothers, Lucretia Prewett nee Black, and Dorea Potter nee Black.

Arcturus strode to the middle of the throng of adults blocking their access to the open casket, swinging his ebony cane in either direction to clear a path for himself. “Let Sirius and his young man through.”

Walburga and Orion sank back into their seats, turning their faces away as Sirius and Harry walked past to stare down at Andromeda’s face. All signs of decomposition Harry had remembered seeing were wiped away, leaving her looking, for all the world, as if she were only sleeping, and any moment now, she would wake. Sirius bowed his head, his eyes fluttering closed against a tide of tears. Harry let his hand drift to touch his and Sirius turned his palm to grip him, allowing the billowing of their robes to hide where their fingers intertwined. With his other hand, he conjured a single white rose to lay on top of Andromeda’s still unmoving breast.

“I’m sorry I was too late to help her,” he whispered when a tear rolled down Sirius’ cheek. “I knew her too, maybe not in this life, but in the one I led before coming here. She loved me like I was her son, when both of us had no one left to love, after the war.”

“I know. She had a daughter, and a grandson, Remus’ son,” Sirius choked, his hand coming up to cover his mouth to tamp down his sobs. “It’ll never happen now.”

He turned his face away from the body in the casket and pressed his face into Harry’s shoulder, muffling the sound of his crying. Harry let go of his hand and, uncaring of the two dozen pairs of eyes watching them with hostile glares, put his arm around his boyfriend, and let him cry. They stood there for a long moment, unhearing of the buzz of whispers that rose above the crowd of grieving family members, until Arcturus came to join them.

“Mr Patter,” he said, his voice gravelly and low. “I would speak with you and my grandson.”

Sirius straightened and wiped his face with the back of his hand. “I have nothing to say to you, to any of you.”

Arcturus shook his head. “You will hear me, young man, for I alone currently hold the sway over the Wizengamot to decide your young man’s fate.”

“Don’t hold this over my head, Grandfather,” Sirius spat, his face contorting with hate. “You will not like how this will turn out.”

“No,” the older man said, his face seemed to have aged immeasurably in the few days since Harry had seen him. Where before, he remembered a formidable looking man no older than middle age, the man who stood before them now seemed grey and ancient. “Come. I’ll not have you become the subject of endless family gossip come Yule.”

Arcturus led them to the side of the graveyard where Narcissa and Regulus sat. Bellatrix had left to sit with her parents, a stern-looking man who looked a lot like Arcturus, and a woman whose resemblance to Rosier was almost uncanny, as had Mafalda and James’ cousin whom Harry recalled, from a conversation that seemed like it had taken place a lifetime ago but had really only been a few weeks, he’d called Abraham.

Harry stood awkwardly at Sirius’ side, the sudden dawning realization that Arcturus had called him Sirius’ young man making him uncomfortably aware that the old patriarch knew of their relationship. Beside Arcturus, Regulus looked faintly embarrassed, as if having been caught at a lie. Narcissa stared at Harry with her relentless, piercing blue gaze, her chin lifted haughtily, as if daring him to accuse her of being the one to spill the beans. He hadn’t seen her since he’d bright her to the hospital wing, and he’d no idea how she’d react to him now after he’d witnessed her breakdown in the Chamber first, and again in Myrtle’s bathroom.

“Mr Patter, I assume you know that the Black seat in the Wizengamot is one of the most powerful politically,” Arcturus said without preamble. “The alliances we hold among the many Pureblood families that hold voting seats are numerous and strong, and can only be challenged should Henry Potter decide to come out of retirement, which I suspect may be a thing of wishful thinking on the part of our opposition. Even your headmaster and our current sitting Chief Warlock cannot hope to sway a decision made by the Black voting bloc.”

Sirius snorted derisively at the pompous declaration of power. Harry remembered the Sirius of his timeline telling him once that Arcturus had held these alliances together by intimidation and bribery, though if the sort of presence that Arcturus presented was anywhere close to how he must present himself on the Wizengamot floor, Harry had no doubt many a politician would be easily swayed. The man certainly had the sort of charisma needed to hold sway among the many politically well-placed Pureblood families, lending him the air of authority he carried that made him look much younger than he actually was.

“The DMLE is proposing a trial to be held on the eve of the solstice,” Arcturus told them. Harry felt his blood run cold. “Our sitting department head, Barty Crouch, whom you’ve met, believes this trial is a farce, that there should be no need for one as his viewing of your memory of the events that led to my granddaughter’s death, and the death of one of your teachers, present no extenuating circumstances for your use of an Unforgivable curse.”

“We know this already,” Sirius snapped, and Harry had to tug his hand back, afraid that he would attack his grandfather. “You made sure to tell me that Dumbledore can’t do anything to help him. State what you want now and be done with it, otherwise we’ll see you on the eve ofsolstice, and I assure you, Grandfather, we’re prepared to fight.”

Arcturus held up a gloved hand. “There’ll be no need, Sirius.” He looked sternly at Harry, his grey eyes were so clear they were almost transparent. “Narcissa has told me of the _true_ events that transpired in the Chamber of Secrets, Mr Patter. I cannot presume to understand why you would put yourself in such an untenable position, but you must know that I consider what you have done to protect my granddaughter from both imminent danger, and the potential sullying of her good name in an inquisition as such you face now, a debt to be carried by the entire Black family.”

Harry gaped, his eyes darting accusingly to Narcissa, whose blue gaze remained implacable, her expression cold and proud. Sirius turned to Harry, confusion apparent on his face.

“What’s he talking about, Harry?”

Harry shook his head. He didn’t want to have this conversation here. He looked at Narcissa instead. “I told you not to talk.”

“I will when you’re not helping yourself,” she sniffed, turning her face from him. “A Black asks help from no one, but when help is offered, we do not turn our backs and disgrace the man who helps us.”

“Harry?” Sirius demanded, his voice urgent, as if he would die or attack someone if Harry didn’t tell him right here and now what the hell was going on.

Narcissa turned to Sirius, her pale cheeks suffused with color. “ _I_ was the one who killed Croaker. Patter took my wand so you wouldn’t know.” She glared at Harry, her expression daring him to argue. “I don’t know how you convinced yourself otherwise to have shown your memories to the Aurors like that, but I will not have you sent to Azkaban after you saved my life. After you saved Sirius’ life.”

Arcturus nodded. “So you see, Mr Patter, it seems this family owes you more than one debt for your quick thinking and magical prowess. My granddaughter has told me how she had seen Sirius completely stop drawing breath, attacked by a dangerous artifact hidden in one of your school’s store rooms. And yet here he is, standing before us, alive enough to disrespect his betters.”

Harry felt his face drain of blood as Sirius stared at him in disbelief. Sirius _hadn’t_ known he’d died. Harry had let him believe that the diadem had attacked him and Harry had saved him somehow and woken him up by kissing him. He didn’t know that Harry had literally breathed Life into him to bring him back.

“I would have preferred that no one found any of this out,” he ground out at Narcissa, who sniffed unrepentantly.

Arcturus inclined his head. “You will find that the Black family can actually be discreet. Our family has many secrets that we have kept from the greater wizarding population, secrets that would not be beneficial to our position should they come to light. I concede that you having the power to bring a dead boy back to life must be such a secret that you wish to keep.”

Harry shook his head. “You don’t understand. I didn’t even know what I was doing then; I just wanted Sirius to be okay!”

“And he is,” Arcturus said just as Sirius cried “I’m right here!”

“All I’m saying now, Mr Patter,” Arcturus said patiently when Sirius finally subsided, “is that we, that is the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black, is deeply indebted to you for saving two of our children from certain death, and one of them from a life of disgrace. Narcissa would most certainly have been dismissed from Hogwarts should the true nature of events of the Chamber of Secrets come to light.”

When Sirius opened his mouth to interrupt again, Arcturus pulled his wand out and Silenced him. “Ah, thank you. Sirius, my child, you test me, truly, and that is why as of today, you are no longer disowned. I am returning all of your birthrights and inheritances as the Heir to the House of Black. I do not expect you to comply of your responsibilities as Heir, particularly given your… preferences of the company you keep. Your mother acted in haste and poor judgment in your upbringing, and I fear it may be too late to bring you back to the fold. But I shall not be found wanting of an Heir because Walburga does not know how to raise her children. You may bequeath your Heirship to your own heirs when the time comes that you should have them, but until then, while I do not expect you to return to your father’s home, I expect that you acknowledge your position in this family. You are an adult now, Sirius. I expect that you act it.”

He turned to Harry, his pale eyes assessing, before he nodded as if what he saw was adequate. “As for you, Mr Patter—“ he reached into a breast pocket hidden in the folds of his robes and procured a sealed letter. “This is a signed letter from the Minister of Magic, acknowledging that the DMLE will cease and desist in their pursuance of a case against you. There shall be no need for a trial. Any record the Auror Corps may have of the case shall be sealed, and expunged from your name. Saul Croaker will be declared dead by accident of the mishandling of a magical artifact. Andromeda’s death has been ruled a murder perpetrated by Mr Croaker under the influence of said artifact, and as he is no longer with us, there shall be no further prosecution as to this case.” He stood and held the letter out to Harry. “Are we in accord, Mr Patter?”

Harry stared at the letter holding the key to his freedom. “No.”

“No? You think your freedom and the reinstatement of my grandson as Heir to the Lordship not a suitable exchange for saving the lives of my two grandchildren, one of whom is my chosen Heir and your current paramour?”

Harry shook his head. “I would save Sirius’ life every opportunity I get and you do not get to bargain with me for that. And I did not save Narcissa from the basilisk for you to use her as a bargaining chip either.”

Arcturus looked affronted. “Then state your terms clearly so that the House of Black may accede or deny them.”

“Mr Black, this is your family, and Sirius is the person I love. You don’t bargain with me for their lives. I don’t do business when the lives of people I love are the ones that hang in the balance.” He looked shrewdly at Arcturus. “However, there _is_ something you can do if you want to absolve yourself of the life debt they owe, one which may save yet more lives than you can count.”

“I care little for anyone besides they who carry the Black name, but speak so that we can conclude our business.”

“Do you know what it is that killed Andromeda? That caused an ancient basilisk held within the most hidden depths of Hogwarts to wake from its stasis to attack Narcissa? What it is that nearly killed Sirius? Do you know who made the artifacts that made it possible to nearly take the lives of three of your grandchildren? No, I suppose Narcissa didn’t tell you, did she?”

Narcissa had the grace to look abashed. “He would not believe me had I told.”

Harry glowered at her and she shrank into her seat, the haughty expression on her face dissolving. “You’ve been campaigning in support of the man who’d made it possible for you to nearly lose two of your grandchildren, and actually cost the life of one of them. His name is Tom Riddle, a half-blood, who I know you might feel is beneath your concern. Perhaps that much, Narcissa had told you. But you’ve been courting his favor for as long as you’ve known him as Lord Voldemort.”

Regulus gasped, and Narcissa paled at the mention of the name. Arcturus frowned, surprise clearly written in his stern features.

“And you know this how?”

“I don’t need to tell you. Suffice to say that I’ve fought against him, and I know this from handling the same artifact that killed Andromeda. Handling it and destroying it.” He looked frankly at Arcturus’ lined face. “If you want any honor to your name, you’ll stop your family from associating with him, and work with your associates to do the same.”

Arcturus looked back at Narcissa. “Is this true?”

She nodded timidly. “I—Patter told me, and Lucius and I looked him up in the books on family genealogies in the library.”

“And of the artifacts?”

Sirius snorted, finding that the Silencing spell had lifted with Arcturus’ shock over Voldemort’s involvement in Andromeda’s death. “That’s true enough.” He dug into his pocket and pulled out the diadem, taking care to hold it close enough to his body that only people who were directly in front of him could see it. “Here’s the thing that had apparently killed me. If you reach with your magic hard enough, you can feel the malevolence in it.”

Arcturus’ eyes glowed bright as if recognizing Ravenclaw’s diadem, and he reached out for it only to have Sirius snap the crown back into his pocket. “You’ll not touch it or take it from me to give to him to curry you more favor.”

Harry nodded sternly, unconsciously pushing a bit of his magic into his voice as he spoke. “And you will tell no one that you know we have it.”

For a moment, he had to wonder what it was that had echoed in his voice that had Arcturus’ eyes turn glassy and strange, before the man’s piercing gaze was back. “I understand, Mr Patter, and I accede to your request. The House of Black will withdraw our support from He Who Must Not Be Named, and I will speak to the Heads of Houses that sit on the Wizengamot. If He Who Must Not Be Named has mounted an attack on three children of the House of Black, then he has mounted an attack on the Pureblood families of Britain. We cannot abide by this infringement.”

“Then we are in accord,” Harry said firmly, and he took Sirius’ hand, openly now, without fear. “We won’t speak again, Lord Black.”

Arcturus nodded solemnly. “But you shall have our support regardless, Mr Patter. And I shall keep my word as to your freedom and Sirius’ Heirship. Thank you.”

And with that, Harry dragged Sirius away from the graveyard, feeling as if he’d entered into a deal with the devil… and came out the victor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I read [this fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1085412/chapters/2182999) once about a politically astute Sirius Black and found there's never been anything sexier than a man who knows how to conduct his politics, even when he's in over his head. The Sirius Black of that fic is the one that inspired the Harry Potter you're seeing in this story.  
> I highly suggest giving that fic a read. The Sirius in that story is so awesome there's very few words in the English vocabulary that can describe him.
> 
> Note that there's a continuity error in this chapter. Back in Chapter 11, I wrote that Harry and Sirius told everything to James and Remus. But here, Sirius didn't know that he died. I suppose I just explained it away here as Harry letting Sirius believe that he'd been knocked out by the diadem and wouldn't wake until Harry kissed him. But yes, it's a continuity error, and no, I don't want to take that out of this chapter lol. I like how this turned out and taking that part out, while only really affecting a snippet of dialogue, isn't something I want to part with.
> 
> Lastly, this is my last pre-written chapter. Based on my outline, I have 6-7 more chapters to go, which means this is the lead up to the climax, which is usually the parts I have the most difficulty writing (how do I make sure I make everything exciting enough without making it look like I pulled everything out of my ass?) That is to say that I foresee a bit of a slow down in churning the rest of the story out because I'm a person who doesn't know how to finish her fics lmao I really appreciate all the comments and love people have given this story so far. I actually don't think I would have been half as motivated to write something so complex if I didn't get the encouragement from the comments and likes and all, so thank you to everyone who's read this so far!
> 
> If you would like to talk more about the story with me but don't feel like leaving a comment, hit me up on [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/mumuinc). I want to hear speculation and what y'all think about god-mode Harry Potter lmao


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well goddamn I never expected I'd word-vomit another chapter out this fast. Oh well, it's the weekend and I have nothing better to do.

Sirius was on him before they even landed back in Hogsmeade, just outside the castle wards. Harry was again reminded that he was dealing with an emotionally volatile teenager, that the Sirius on his arm at the moment had not had any time at all to mature to understand why there was just Shit You Didn’t Tell Children, like oh the fact that they once died in your arms and you had to beg magic to give them back to you, and that shit like that didn’t need to be rehashed, especially when things like _resurrection_ were supposed to be nigh on fucking impossible, even with magic.

The stormy seas around the Cornish coast had nothing on the hurricane that lurked behind Sirius’ eyes as he tugged his arm roughly from Harry’s grip and stomped purposefully past the gates, ignoring Harry’s efforts to catch up to him.

“Sirius!”

Sirius whirled on his feet, his anger a palpable being that lashed out painfully against Harry’s chest. “What the fuck was that?”

Harry knew there was no way of getting around the things he’d kept from him. Maybe the events of the Chamber of Secrets were something he could chalk up to not having the right moment to tell his boyfriend, but even that sounded like a thin excuse. Sirius had spent the night in his bed. There’d been plenty enough time to tell.

“There’s a shit ton of things to unpack from there,” Harry said, trying to keep his voice even. It seemed between the funeral and their conversation with Arcturus, they’d just about managed to make it back to Hogwarts by lunch time. There were people strolling on the grounds and they were starting to stare, with how loud and sharp Sirius’ was being. “You’ll have to be a bit more specific.”

If anything, Sirius’ eyes flashed even more dangerously. “How about we start with you taking the fall for my idiot cousin casting an Unforgivable curse? I know you have a fucking death wish from your previous life, but I’d thought by now that you’re fucking well and over that!”

Harry sighed. He wanted to rub his eyes in frustration, but he knew it would just invite more if Sirius’ ire if he showed how exasperated he was that everyone, Sirius, Narcissa, hell even fucking Arcturus Black, had been second-guessing his decision not to let an underaged girl get thrown out of school and into Azkaban.

“What do you want me to say? Narcissa _did_ cast the—“ He looked around at the curious eyes that had drifted in their direction and erected a privacy bubble that seemed to only infuriate Sirius even more “—Killing Curse at Croaker. I couldn’t very well let her go to Azkaban for it! She’s fifteen years old!”

“Oh, and you’re so much older?” Sirius returned snidely. “Harry Potter, seventeen years old for all the world to see. Did you not think that maybe since she was underage, that she wouldn’t actually have gotten a prison sentence? Or is being all _noble_ and self-sacrificing some sort of kink of yours? Harry, you’re seventeen! You’re an adult in the eyes of the wizarding world. If Grandfather hadn’t been a manipulating old codger, you damn well will have your arse sitting in Azkaban! If Cissa had been caught, she might have been expelled, yes, but she wouldn’t have gone to prison. She’s fucking underage! That’s her advantage.”

Harry scowled. “Are you so far removed from your family that you’d see your cousin go to Azkaban—or fine, let’s say she doesn’t and she only gets expelled—for casting a curse she did out of overwhelming grief? Andromeda’s her sister! I understood that and I needed her not to feel like she had ruined her life in petty revenge. You have to understand that, Sirius. You’ve _seen_ what that sort of petty revenge did to you, the you in my timeline. I didn’t want that to happen to her.”

Sirius seemed to want to hold on to his anger but at Harry’s tone, the reminder that the him in the future that he’d seen of Harry’s life had spent twelve years unjustly imprisoned, seemed to take the wind out of his sails and he deflated.

“I—I know that, Harry, just as I know you can’t… I don’t know, that you can’t help but feel like you have to save people.” He looked Harry in the eye. Something in his expression made him appear as if he was going to start to cry. “But you have to realize that you don’t need to save everyone. Even if Cissa had been found out, even if the professors might advocate for her to get expelled, you’ve seen what my family is like, the sort of political clout they wield. Grandfather would never have let her be expelled or disgraced. He would have connived and killed if he had to, to make sure she never faced the consequences of her actions.”

Harry swallowed. He hadn’t thought of things that way. It had always been him alone against the world for so long he’d forgotten that other people didn’t see the way the world worked the same way he did. When he’d been alone and depressed and wanting to die, he’d wanted it because he had nothing left to live for. But at the same time, he’d wanted it because if he stayed alive, the wizarding world would die. It had been the same heavy feeling he’d carried in his heart when he walked in the forest, ready to die so that Voldemort could be mortal and someone would surely finish what he’d started.

Sirius reached out and placed a cool palm against his cheek. “You need to understand that Cissa already has people to protect her; you don’t need to. And I think you need to know that there are people who want to protect you too. _I_ want to protect you. If Grandfather had rescinded on his offer of your freedom, you damn well better be sure I would never let you rot in Azkaban; if I had to run off and become a fugitive with you, I will.”

Sirius’ eyes were soft as he pulled him close, the feel of soft lips skittering over Harry’s own dry, chapped ones, the warm, almost shy expression on his face as he smiled tentatively, his palm smoothing over Harry’s skin, intimate and worshipful. “I don’t want to lose you, you know. You _have_ to know that, Harry.”

“I—“

Whatever he’d been about to say was lost as the stern face of Minerva McGonagall appeared, hovering just behind Sirius. Trailing behind her were the shame-filled faces of James Potter and Remus Lupin, and a concerned-looking Peter Pettigrew. The privacy bubble around them collapsed as Harry jerked back from Sirius, who whirled on his heels, his eyes widening at McGonagall’s expression.

“I never—! In all my years at Hogwarts—!” She was so mad, she could barely finish any of her sentences. “Mr Black, Mr Patter, I need to understand what this is because it appears to me that the two of you have not only decided to play truant, but your friends have reported both of you missing completely from Hogwarts grounds since the previous night. Mr Potter assures me that there’s a completely rational explanation for you, Mr Black, to have disappeared out of your dorms, and I expect to hear them now before I dole out your punishments.”

Harry opened his mouth, but Sirius cut in with a smooth voice, “Professor, today was Andromeda’s funeral. I’d just gone, and Harry accompanied me.”

McGonagall’s face softened at the reminder that the Black family was in mourning. “I can appreciate that Mr Black, but perhaps a notice to each of your Heads of House ahead of time would have been appreciated, and your friends saved the frantic heartache, particularly after the recent events that have led to your cousin’s passing. As I understand, your mother had sent for your brother and cousin.”

Sirius nodded, though his expression was venomous. “She did, didn’t she? Didn’t want to deal with the son she was going to disown.”

“Mr Black, I understand that you’re under extreme pressure from your family, and with Andromeda’s passing, things are undoubtedly strained,” McGonagall said patiently. “However, this school is responsible for your safety. And while you may now be an adult in the eyes of the wizarding world, you are still a student, and as such, fall under the protection of the school and your Head of House. See that you accord some respect for that responsibility as it’s hard enough to keep track of you while you’re in the school, much less when you go traipsing out of it.”

She turned to Harry, who cringed internally. It had been a long time since he’d face Minerva McGonagall’s stern yet caring face and it never failed to make him feel like a misbehaving eleven-year-old. “As for you, Mr Patter, I would like for you to exercise some discretion with the sort of excursions that you engage in with Mr Black and his friends.” She nodded meaningfully, unwilling to continue lest she give away Harry’s origins to the four boys, and Harry didn’t think he could love her more that she cared to keep his secret, even though for the most part, James and Sirius and Remus knew about him already.

“Yes, Professor,” he murmured and she nodded again to him.

“Well, you two had best get going for lunch. Be sure you are back in your classes for the afternoon, and let’s not catch the two of you engaging in inappropriate behavior in public. The younger students misconstrue the sort of intimacy between two young men, and I’d rather not that any of these people judge you for either of your preferences.”

Sirius groaned and complained that it had been a perfectly chaste kiss as they followed McGonagall back into the castle, but Harry couldn’t help but think that she might have been right: he _wouldn’t_ want to subject Sirius to the sort of judgment that people would level on them for who they were. Already, he could see Peter’s wary stare as he and Sirius walked side by side, too close to just be friends. Remus and James, who were aware of their relationship, did not act any differently, but they were the exception rather than the norm, and Harry realized that he loved Sirius far too much to want him to be subjected to the sort of prejudice that the other students may have against their relationship.

Truly, they needed to exercise a bit more discretion, which Harry thought might go flying out of the window as they walked and Sirius turned to him to wink conspiratorially and whisper,

“I didn’t even get to tell you how fucking hot you were telling Grandfather off like that. And don’t think I’ve forgotten what you said earlier.”

Harry’s heart clenched in his throat, half-afraid that Sirius would be mad all over again about him withholding the fact that Sirius had died. “Wh-what about what I said?”

But Sirius only smiled a secret smile that was meant only for the two of them. “Oh you know… that you love me.” Then his grin turned wicked. “Don’t think that lets you off the hook for the shit you tried to pull, though.”

Harry’s heart soared. Perhaps the world was prejudiced against him loving a boy with a smile as simultaneously devious and kind as Sirius, but when that smile turned on him, he felt like he could take on the world, with all its prejudice and judgment, and manipulative families and dark lords.

* * *

Arcturus Black’s promised action was swift and ruthless and true. Whatever there was to be said about the Black patriarch, he was true to his word, standing by the information divulged by Narcissa, and worked tirelessly through November to cut his family’s ties with Voldemort, and rally the various Pureblood families connected to and allied with the Blacks against him.

Harry was witness to the schism of the Pureblood children within Slytherin house as their parents duked it out outside the school, the exploits splashed in the pages of the Daily Prophet of the Pureblood families decrying the attacks that occurred within Hogwarts as a declaration of war. It seemed, if the world in 1977 had not yet been on the brink of war, that the knowledge of Voldemort infiltrating and endangering the Pureblood children within the school was the spark that was needed to tip Wizarding Britain into an all-out war against Voldemort and his supporters.

Within the dorms, cliques of children had formed between those whose families had rescinded support, against those who remained staunchly entrenched in the Dark Lord’s side. Harry didn’t think he would see the day that Lucius Malfoy chastised some of the younger Slytherins for associating with Rabastan and Dolohov, whose families remained firmly entrenched in support of Voldemort’s position and ideology.

There was little in the way of discussing their beliefs of Pureblood supremacy, but people like Lucius and Avery and Rosier made efforts in curtailing the epithets they commonly hurled against the few Muggleborns who were in school, and Harry was even gratified to see Lucius docking points against Snape for carrying on with the slurs whenever he was caught fighting with the Marauders in the corridors. He didn’t actually think it was possible, but the conversation with Arcturus Black seemed to open up an entirely new possibility of the first Wizarding War being won with far less bloodshed and tension than had occurred in Harry’s timeline.

On top of that, most of the Slytherins were firmly on Harry’s side once Dumbledore allowed the Heads of Houses to speak with the students about the events of the Chamber of Secrets. Many of them felt Harry was fully justified in his supposed use of the Killing Curse to halt an imminent attack on two of their own. Harry rather believed Slughorn released far more information than any of the other Heads of Houses, as he revealed further that Harry had been the one who sealed the entrance to the Chamber, and that he’d destroyed the artifact that had caused Croaker to go crazy and attempt to kill two of his students. Harry would have preferred that no one learned about the diary, but he didn’t think it was overall a detriment to his plans given that Slughorn hadn’t specifically talked about it, only that an artifact left by Voldemort in the school had been the cause of the deaths.

The marked improvement in behavior and treatment of the non-Pureblood segment of the school population improved Sirius’ relationships with Narcissa and Regulus, although he steadfastly refused to return home to his parents for any of the remaining vacations they had from Hogwarts. Harry had to assure Regulus that Arcturus knowing of how badly Walburga had raised and treated her two sons meant that there should be some improvement in the environment when he went home. Regulus had sniffed and told Harry he would vacation with the Rosiers if he needed to get away and that he didn’t need Harry protecting him the way Narcissa needed a knight in shining armor to drive away large snakes for her, causing Harry to flush violently when Narcissa’s rejoinder involved a few choice lines of how she would never get in the way of her two cousins wanting to duke it out for the Slytherin Quidditch star.

Regulus had blushed and turned away but not before muttering under his breath, “Sirius _really_ ought to be content with the Quidditch players in _his_ house and leave the ones in mine alone for the rest of us.” The comment had alternately bemused and worried Harry, leaving him wondering if Regulus knew more of Sirius’ original attraction to James and if there was more to it that Harry needed to be worried about.

The relative harmony that existed in the Slytherin dorms however, seemed a stark counterpoint to trouble brewing within the friendship of the Marauders.

James was the first to voice his concerns. He didn’t like keeping secrets (apart from what he deemed far too much information that Sirius shared with him of his relationship with Harry, which, though had not progressed any further physically, still meant James was perpetually red-cheeked whenever he and Harry talked, likely recalling some crude story that Sirius divulged to him, and Harry would really like to not know about how his tonsils tasted or how he performed in bed from a third party, least of all his father). And he especially didn’t want to have to skirt around the details of Harry’s origins whenever Peter was with them. Remus deferred to James that it was unfair to keep Peter out, especially considering how much time the three of them spent with Harry, hidden away in the Room of Requirement.

Harry didn’t want for the friends to have to break off their friendship with Peter, but unlike the other junior Death Eaters in the Slytherin dorms who he didn’t need to actually spend his free time with apart from sleeping in the same dorm room, he just couldn’t be comfortable being around the boy who would grow up to betray his parents, resulting in them getting killed. Sirius adamantly refused anything to do with Peter since he’d seen the vision of the future in the diadem, and the four of them were now at an impasse that seemed to grow more tense as the Christmas holidays approached.

“I just think,” James said as they sat in the Gryffindor common room replica that the Room of Requirement constantly served up when they met after classes, “that if we’re all about the business of changing how the future unfolded, that we really ought to be helping Wormtail, not shutting him out.”

It was the week before the end of term and the four of them were meant to be studying for exams. Harry didn’t care enough to study though he had Snape’s Potions book open in his stomach as he leaned his head in Sirius’ lap. Sirius had declared himself done with studying— he’d always been the sort to coast through exams and still get superior marks. James and Remus still had leftover homework from Flitwick and McGonagall, who were the sternest taskmasters of all, still assigning homework on the week of their exams.

Sirius waved a negligent hand that he then proceeded to bury back in Harry’s hair, tugging at the strands in an effort to bring some semblance of control over the unruly hair. “We help him plenty, Prongs, or haven’t you forgotten that Wormtail just copied my Transfiguration homework before we even made it here?”

Remus shook his head. He was the most pragmatic of the Marauders, and seemed the voice of reason when James and Sirius started butting heads. “Pete’s been really feeling left out though. The three of us are barely even in the common rooms now, except when Prongs needs his Lily time.”

“Oi, I’m not obligating you to wingman me around Evans,” James muttered, adjusting his glasses as he sprawled on the floor to move on next from Transfiguration to Charms homework.

Sirius grinned. “Yeah, that’s _my_ role.”

James rolled his eyes. “Sirius, you’re the _worst_ wingman. All this time we’ve been friends and you’ve never talked me up to Evans. At least Harry has; she thinks I’m a sort of good Samaritan, distributing Wolfsbane to needy werewolves all around Britain. Did you know, the other day she told me she’s working on that potion of yours, Harry? She said she might be getting somewhere in improving it so that not only will Moony retain his mental faculties on the next full, she might be able to tweak the potion enough that the transformation doesn’t hurt him at all.”

“A blessing is what she is,” Remus agreed. Lily had met Harry in Study Room 6 a few more times in the past week to help him with the Wolfsbane potion that Remus was drinking now, the second goblet of his full week regimen before the full moon that would take place the night before the end of term.

“What’s a good Samaritan?” Sirius asked blankly as he moved his hands now to rub on Harry’s scalp. The motion was smooth and relaxing that it almost lulled him to sleep.

“Someone who does charitable work for strangers without expecting anything in return,” Remus replied matter-of-factly. “Anyway, going back to Peter, we _have_ to do something. He’s getting suspicious about where the three of us get to.”

James nodded. “Wormy’s our friend, and we aren’t being good friends by just telling him to butt out every time we’re coming here.”

Sirius scowled and looked down at Harry, who had his head in his lap, his eyes drooping. “Harry?”

Harry blinked, lost in the conversation for a moment, before sitting up. “Well, the only thing I can really tell you is what happened to you in _my_ timeline. I don’t know Peter well enough to tell you if he’s changed since, or if he’s still going to betray you to Voldemort and frame Sirius for your death.”

“And I’m _not_ going to Azkaban in the place of the rat,” Sirius muttered, face darkening. “Really, Prongs, we ought to have known the sort of person Pete really is. I mean, his animagus is afucking rat. If that doesn’t tell you he’ll betray us all at some point, I don’t know what will. Besides, wasn’t he the one who squealed to McGonagall when Harry sent us his Patronus?”

James frowned. “Sirius, there were two people dead in that bathroom. Peter was right to get McGonagall.”

“Yeah, and for that, he almost got _Harry_ chucked to Azkaban. Ever think of that? Or how about that time we went to Andromeda’s funeral and you were looking for me, and Peter had the bright idea to snitch on my disappearance?” He folded his arms across his chest and Harry could see that mulish expression that meant Sirius was digging his haunches. “Face it: Peter’s a rat, and nothing we do is going to change that.”

James looked up at him, disappointment clear in his handsome features (Harry didn’t want to be big-headed to think that calling James handsome automatically made him that too, given that he and James could be mistaken for twins, but his father really was a pretty good-looking bloke. He could see why Sirius had been so attracted to him.)

“Sirius, Harry just told us that Andromeda and Croaker’s deaths have changed so many things in his timeline, in the future. Look at what that’s done with your family,” James said reasonably. “You told us that in the future, your mother had completely blasted you out of the Black family tapestry, but after the funeral, your grandfather made you Heir again. And look at the Slytherins. Who would’ve believed there’d be a day when Malfoy wasn’t an utter prick to some Muggleborn from another House? Or Rookwood, or Rosier? Things are changing, Sirius. Things still can, and I think we need to give Peter the benefit of the doubt that he _can_ change. Otherwise, what would be the point in all this?”

“It’s a good point,” Remus added. “If we keep shutting Pete out, then wouldn’t that just engender his resentment in the future and make him more likely to betray us?”

Sirius scowled. “And what? As opposed to keeping him away to keep Harry safe? You don’t understand it, the lot of you.”

Harry frowned. “What do I have to do with anything?”

Sirius stood. “Don’t get me started on you. In _your_ timeline, you decided to have mercy on him when old-me was going to kill him after I escaped from Azkaban. And what did that get you? It got you that scar!” He pointed at the scar on Harry’s left arm, the one where Wormtail had cut him to take his blood in his resurrection potion that brought Voldemort back a physical body during Harry’s fourth year. The scar was well faded now, nothing but a shiny white slash on otherwise tan skin, but Sirius found it unerringly, the vision fresh in his mind’s eye.

“Wormtail brought Voldemort back to life, after you’d already killed him! And you _want_ him to know about you? To know about the things you’re looking for? To find this?” He gestured at the diadem on the table, still not destroyed as none of them could agree on which portion of the crown to strike with the basilisk fang. There were too many chinks for the tip of the fang to sink in so they hadn’t made any progress in its destruction.

“I’m not saying anything,” Harry said slowly. “I know what’s happened to all of you in my timeline, but I can’t know the future when things have changed.”

“It’s not going to where Peter’s concerned!” Sirius yelled, and so saying, promptly stomped out of the room.

Harry stared after him, not quite comprehending why Sirius was so mad. James and Remus were right, after all. Things were changing and Harry couldn’t predict now which direction Peter would sway, but if they kept shutting him out, he’d feel that he had nowhere to turn to, and there was no question that he would far too easily caved to Voldemort’s intimidations all over again.

“I’ll go check on him,” he muttered, getting up too.

James shook his head. “No, let him stew. He’ll need some time to cool off. I’ll talk to him later when we go back to the dorms.”

Harry nodded as he pocketed the diadem. Sirius had been holding onto it the entire time. He wondered if somehow, the Horcrux in it was causing the mood swings the way the locket had latched onto all the dark feelings of resentment that brewed between Harry and Ron back when they were hunting the Horcruxes in what would have been their seventh year. He hoped that wasn’t the case, but it was too familiar behavior, especially with how Sirius had been so irrationally angry over perfectly well-reasoned arguments. He really needed to get on with destroying the Horcrux, and he promised himself he would do so as soon as the other two vacated the room. He couldn’t try to save them all from Voldemort while allowing the Horcruxes to just ruin all of their young lives by turning them against each other.

He remembered how Remus, in his timeline, had told him of the mistrust that fomented between him and Sirius as the war got underway, culminating in his believing that Sirius could ever betray James, his best friend, and as Harry understood it then, the person Sirius loved more than he even loved himself. Harry didn’t want that future to ever come to pass.

Once James and Remus had left to look for Sirius and go back to their common room, Harry pulled the diadem out of his pocket again to study it. It was a simple circlet made of flowing white gold. There were tiny runes etched in the metal punctuated here and there by the sparkle of twinkling diamonds the size of a grain of sand and embedded deeply into the body of the crown. The centerpiece in the front was an oval blue sapphire set in the center of a carved fleur-de-lis.

Harry pulled out the basilisk fang, still wrapped in his glove to prevent the venom trapped within the hollow narrow tip from leaking out. The fang was longer than his entire handspan, the tip just large enough to slip through the divots and dips in the metal of the diadem. He remembered Hermione trying to stab it with the basilisk fang in the Room of Requirement, before Crabbe cast the Fiendfyre. The Horcrux hadn’t unleashed then since the fang simply slipped into a gap in the metal, and only the Fiendfyre melting it had destroyed the soul fragment along with the crown.

Thinking back to how he’d destroyed the diary in both timelines, and how Ron had managed stab the locket Horcrux only once it was opened, he turned the diadem over and stared at the sapphire. Bracing himself, he imagined a serpent’s head within the blue crystal depths and spoke the same Parseltongue command he’d told the diary,

“ _Reveal yourself._ ”

The diadem glowed with an ultraviolet malevolent light, the blue sapphire shining. A black tendril of magic unfurled from its depths, sinister and evil and all-knowing as it spoke the same poisonous words the locket had spoken to Ron:

“ _I have seen your heart, Harry Potter, and it is mine.”_

* * *

Although James Potter knew Sirius Black as his best friend, a brother in all but name, he’d never quite, in all the years he’d known Sirius, had to deal with a Sirius Black who was in love. A Sirius Black who was in love and was slowly being corrupted by the Horcrux he’d kept in his pocket at the behest of his boyfriend. A Sirius Black who was in love, and who was mortally afraid of losing that love to the sort of future that loomed in their horizon, the future he’d seen before the diadem had killed him. The future in which he’d gone to Azkaban, where his friends have either died or betrayed or hated him, the future where he’d died and failed to save Harry Potter from his fate.

The moment Sirius had slammed out of the Room of Requirement, it was as if a veil had torn through the fog of that fear clouding his head. James and Remus were right, of course. Peter was their friend for far longer than any of the three of them had known Harry Potter. Peter was one of them, one of the Marauders, and the other two were right in saying that the future wasn’t set in stone anymore. Hadn’t they already seen that with Croaker and Andromeda dying? In Harry’s timeline, Croaker had been old and decrepit when he’d finally succumbed to the overloading magic of the Consumption, and Andromeda had definitely been quite alive and healthy, had gone on to have a daughter with Ted Tonks, and a Metamorphmagus grandson like her daughter, Nymphadora. Both Croaker and Andromeda were gone now, irrevocably changing the future as Harry had known it, so it was a reasonable argument that given the right support and encouragement from his friends, Peter would not have turned to Voldemort out of fear for his life.

 _Although_ , Sirius thought to himself, _I’d never trust him with a Fidelius charm on the Potter’s cottage if any of the things I’d seen ever come to pass_.

He didn’t think he could return to the room just yet, the suffocating weight of shame he felt at nearly turning against his friends needed to dissipate from his core before he returned to face James’ and Remus’ judgment, so he skulked out to the darkened grounds to walk the perimeter of the castle until he had well and truly cleared his head, especially with the biting cold of winter.

There was still about an hour to curfew and neither James and Remus nor Harry had gone out looking for him, probably on James’ sound advice to leave him alone when he was in a snit. He made his way back to the seventh floor, opening his mouth for an apology as he entered, but the scene that unfolded before him stunned him into silence.

The diadem sat on the table where he’d left it, but it was giving off a malignant glow, a bright red-tinged apparition emerging from the sapphire in the middle of the crown talking in unintelligible hisses at Harry, who stood motionless, transfixed by the image the apparition was showing him. Behind his glasses, his bright green eyes glowed a sinister red as he watched a vision of what Sirius could only really recognize as himself locked in a naked, intimate embrace not with Harry, but with James.

The differences in their appearances were minute but visible to someone like Sirius, who’d been attracted to them both: James was taller, better built than Harry, who remained just this side of scrawny and on the brink of being unattractive if one didn’t see the keen intelligence in his eyes, the spark of mischief in his smile. Harry had the gaunt features of someone who’d witnessed something particularly harrowing—not surprising since he’d survived a war—where James was the picture of youthful naïveté, a little lord convinced the world revolved around him.

The James in the apparition, though, looked nothing like his best friend. He sneered cruelly at Harry, whose eyes were overbright and shining with unshed tears, as apparition-Sirius grinned down at him wickedly and licked a lascivious strip up apparition-James’ neck.

“Harry!” Sirius yelled as the basilisk fang fell from Harry’s nerveless fingers as Harry moaned a broken “No…” as the dam of tears broke and spilled hotly down his pale cheeks.

Without thinking, Sirius dove to Harry’s side, grabbed the basilisk fang from the floor and stabbed it into the blue sapphire. The apparitions shrieked and wavered as bright white light shot through them the same moment an inky black substance poured through the chip in the sapphire created by the basilisk fang. Rearing his hand back, Sirius cried out and stabbed the crown again, more viciously this time. The black blood substance exploded and gushed, the apparations contorting and screaming before flashing white and blinding and disappearing in a shower of sparks, and Harry collapsed to the floor, sobs wracking his thin frame.

“It’s not real, Harry,” Sirius whispered, throwing his arms around his boyfriend, cradling him against his chest. “It’s not real, James is my brother, but I love _you_. I love you and that’s the only truth you need to hold on to.” 

He repeated the words over and over, a mantra declaration of who and what he was going to dedicate his life to if need be, as Harry clung to him, it seemed, desperate for the comfort of his company, and not for the first time, Sirius felt a stab of horror at the sort of life this man had to live through for him to feel so worthless that he feared his _father_ stealing the boy he loved from under his nose. He wanted to rage and howl against the injustice that Harry had lived through, the horrible childhood, the grooming into a child soldier by their headmaster whom Sirius had once thought the world of, the death of all his friends, his family, his _children_ … but for the moment, the only thing he could do was offer the comfort of his arms, his words, his _love_ , as Harry sobbed out a lifetime of despair and loneliness and the terrible weight of taking on such an impossible mission has having to hunt and destroy Voldemort all over again. In the back of his mind, Sirius wondered if his love would be enough to ensure Harry’s survival.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some notes on this part:
> 
>   1. Obviously the line "I have seen your heart, and it is mine" is a quote lifted directly from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I thought it too good to pass up the reference. The line is so ridiculously extra, it could really have only come from Voldemort... er I mean JKR.
>   2. The Horcrux destruction scene of the locket was used here, so now I guess I have to think about something else to do when the locket Horcrux is found lmao. 
>   3. Couldn't pass up the last scene written in Sirius' POV, which I'd never used, as well. I had a different plan for how this was meant to go, and now it changes things for some of the upcoming chapters, which means I need to re-plan the Crystal Cave and locket horcrux retrieval scenes, but [Kaydu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaydu/pseuds/Kaydu)'s [question-comment](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25836640/comments/337319410) on the fact that Harry never reacted to Sirius' confession of liking Harry mainly because he looked like James needed addressing. Note that this addressing is tangential at best because I don't want to stray and linger outside of Harry's POV more than I already have, but it is an important enough point that bears addressing within the story, rather than me just excusing myself for completely forgetting all about that. It's character development for Sirius that I don't think I would have gotten if I left off of it.
>   4. I had no plans of writing a chapter like this at all, but as I've already seen in some of the previous chapters, things crop up and I need to write about the aftermath/consequences of how I made various characters act. The whole sub-plot about Harry's trial and his conversation with Arcturus is a good example of shit I never planned for but ultimately had to do because of things that needed to be addressed. I did like how those three chapters turned out, just as I'm quite satisfied with how I'm going to need to rework the next couple parts to make the changes in the story resulting from this chapter work.
>   5. Notice I didn't address my continuity error of Harry not telling Sirius he'd died. I'm not sure yet whether there's anything I want to do with that. Might depend on how the Crystal Cave scene goes. Wish me luck writing! lmao 
> 

> 
> Now I'll get off my soapbox and get started on all that re-planning!


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote porn at work today. You're welcome.

Harry spent the next few days of the end of term in something of a fugue state as the school went through the anxious rush of examinations followed by the flutter of students packing their things for the Christmas holidays. He couldn’t remember whether he’d sat for any of the exams, though when questioned of how he’d done for so-and-so particular question immediately after the tests, James, Sirius and Remus, and even Rosier and Avery would swear that Harry always had the right answer.

Rosier told him as the boys of Slytherin dorm packed their things on Thursday when exams were finally over that Harry had apparently done so fast and so well in his Potions practical that the smell of his Amortentia distracted many of the other sixth years from their own, and caused Marlene McKinnon, a sixth year girl from Gryffindor who apparently had the station immediately beside Harry’s, to yell out her undying love for him earning her an angry glare from Sirius and frustrated grunts from many of the other examinees who got distracted from the stir count of their own simmering potions.

He couldn’t remember it all. All he saw whenever he closed his eyes was the apparitions that spilled out of the diadem. The Horcrux had taken so much out of him and still he’d failed to destroy it. Had Sirius not appeared at the right moment, the Horcrux might have completely taken him completely.

He couldn’t let go of Sirius after Sirius had found him and destroyed the Horcrux. They’d slept again in the Room of Requirement that night, Sirius holding him close because Harry kept starting at every moving shadow. That night, the nightmares he’d had of the war that hadn’t plagued him since he’d seen mind healers just after he and Ginny got married returned with a vengeance. It was so much worse now as he’d lost so many of his memories of the intervening years. Now, the most recent thing he could remember was holding Albus Severus when he was born and thinking to himself that even if there was no other joy he could find in his life, his sons would remain a guiding light that would keep him from succumbing to the darkness.

They were gone now, probably having no hope of ever happening as the future he’d come from had all but disappeared entirely, and his dreams that night were plagued with images of everyone he had ever loved—Hermione and Ron, Ginny, Jamie and Al, Remus, Tonks and Teddy, Andromeda, his parents, _Sirius_ —turned away from the horror and suffering his mere presence introduced into their lives.

The diadem had insidiously preyed on all of Harry’s insecurities masterfully. Before Sirius had returned to the Room of Requirement, it had shown him first how he’d gotten his best friends killed. Reliving Ron and Hermione’s deaths at the hands of Death Eaters during the final battle had been the first taste of torture. Then it had been Ginny, yelling at him that she would never allow him to see his sons and a beautiful red-haired baby girl that had to be _his_ ever again for the amount of danger he presented in their lives. Then it was Remus and Tonks, Teddy in tow between them telling him he was unfit to be godfather to their little boy; and Andromeda, aged and lined, screaming at him that he’d gotten her killed through his bumbling inaction with the diary, that because of him, there would be no Nymphadora, no Teddy. His mother appearing with red eyes blazing brighter than her hair had been particularly painful, hissing that he’d wasted her sacrifice by dallying in the past instead of fulfilling his destiny. And finally, that terrible scene of Sirius and James, kissing and groping each other’s naked bodies, Sirius taunting him that he would never amount to ever being half as good as how he’d have his father, and James laughing maniacally about how he’d opened his eyes to Sirius, that he never loved Harry’s mother. That because of this new passion they had for each other, Harry would never even be born…

He was afraid to fall asleep, afraid that if he closed his eyes, the Sirius that held him in his arms would disappear into Gryffindor Tower, with _James_ , and never see him again. And when finally, his exhausted body could take no more, the dreams came, tinted with despair and loneliness, tinged a sinister green by the grim-dark world of the war.

He woke screaming, Sirius snapping awake, startled, but ready to provide comfort and love and peace. Sirius kissed him until he’d quieted enough that they could go back to sleep. When they parted to go about their respective days, Harry let himself slip into a blank haze to block out the pain and horror of being alone, without his friends, his children, his parents, _Sirius…_

On the last day before the holidays, he sat alone by the lake, relishing the blankness of the cold. It was snowing, gentle white flakes of ice that drifted in the cool air and caught on his fluttering lashes. The cold was good. It was a physical pain that was useful to distract from the numbing blankness he held inside of him to keep the memory of the diadem’s taunts at bay.

James found him there like that, his arse damp from the seeping cold. Harry was unable to meet his gaze without his mind automatically flittering to the apparition from the diadem.

He vanished a spot of snow beside Harry and plopped down on the grass, unmindful of the damp licking into his cloak.

“Sirius told me I’d find you here, although I suppose you know I have the map and that’s really how I found you,” he said when Harry remained silent, staring off into nothing, as the lake was placid, the giant squid retreating to the deepest parts to avoid the unforgiving cold above. “He… he told me you tried to destroy the diadem, and instead it tried to ensnare you with visions…” he trailed off uncomfortably before clearing his throat and powering through. “Visions of the two of us—that is, Sirius and me—being er, intimate.”

Harry flinched but continued to stare, continued to be silent. He didn’t know how to face his father, to admit to him that he was jealous of him, of his closeness with Sirius, of the charmed, happy life that he seemed to lead, whereas Harry had endured abuse and horror and hardship almost all throughout his entire life in his timeline.

James reached out and took one of Harry’s hands. He wasn’t wearing gloves and his fingers felt like ice. “Shit, Harry, you do realize you’re fucking freezing, don’t you?”

When Harry didn’t respond, he sighed and pulled his wand again and cast a Warming Charm on them both. Harry felt it suffuse into him, filling him with a distant sort of cheer that he couldn’t quite connect with. It just felt so remote, so out of reach.

“Hey, I know you’re still hung up on that… that vision, or apparition from the diadem, whatever it was,” James said softly, holding with both hands onto Harry’s thin, knobbly, nerveless fingers. “It’s not true, you have to believe us. I love Sirius like a brother I’ve never had, and… and I know that once upon a time, he may have been, I dunno, crushing on me or something. But whatever is between us will never be the same as what he feels for you. He’s my best friend and you’re the first boy he’s ever fallen in love with. It’s different, even though that lying thing from hell wants to make you believe that it’s the same. You know you never have to feel any jealousy over me.”

He sighed. “You’re my son, and as absurd as the thought is, I want you to know that it makes me unimaginably happy that there’s a future out there in which Ev—in which Lily and I will be together and married and have a baby boy who’d grow up as kind and wonderful and noble as you, and I don’t mean that just because you’re my son from the future. I mean it because I’ve never met anyone who’d put the life of some girl he’d never met over his own and save her from a basilisk. Or risk imprisonment to keep her from getting expelled. Or use desperate wild magic to bring my best friend, the boy who grows up to be your godfather, back to life. Or, fuck I don’t know, be willing to die so the rest of the wizarding world can live in a world free of Voldemort.

“Fuck, I don’t know if I’d ever meet someone who’s like that, someone who loves so much that he can sacrifice everything he is to fight not just for what he believes in but what’s right, to protect people, and bring about peace where no one had the bollocks to do so. I don’t know anyone like that, Harry, until I met you. And… and you’re my son with Lily and I don’t think you realize how unbelievably ecstatic it makes me feel that you grow up into a man that’s ten times better than I’ll ever be. A hundred times. A million even.” He smiled as he squeezed Harry’s fingers.

“You’re better than all of us that exist here in this timeline, right now, because _you_ are willing to lay everything down to save what you love. And I don’t think you realize how happy it makes me to have someone like that fall in love with my best friend, to give him the type of love he’d never find with his family. I don’t think I ever told you that I more than wholly approve of you and Sirius being together, even though I really can’t help but rib you on it since Sirius can’t shut up about you.

“So, you know, I need you to come back to us. Come back to Sirius.” A wry look twisted his smile for a bit. “He’s going absolutely barmy with how worried he is after what happened, and I’d really like to have my son who is my friend back, so I can tease him about how Sirius finds the way your glasses dig into his face fecking adorable when you kiss or some other rot.”

Harry’s lashes fluttered against the snow melting on top of it, making the curling black strands clump like ink stains against his cheeks as he shut his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, he stared up at his father. James, like Lily, had all the best of him. He was handsome and personable and kind. He was a bit of an arrogant fool but that was changing now as he and Lily grew closer throughout the term. He was responsible over his friends who looked to him as their undisputed leader, and Harry thought, he was immeasurably kind to the wrathful, jealous man that was his son. James Potter may say all these flowery words to Harry about how Harry was so much better than him and so very right for Sirius, but Harry didn’t think James realized what a stand up person he was being, talking to Harry to assuage Harry’s guilt and jealousy.

He opened his mouth to tell him all this, but the kindly warmth seeping into his father’s hazel eyes choked him up for a moment, making feel as if he was about to cry. “Thanks…” he rasped instead, his voice scratchy from disuse, “…dad.”

James’ eyes sparkled with a mixture of relief and mischief as he stood and then tugged Harry to his feet. “Awesome! Let’s get back inside, I’m freezing my bollocks off and you know we’re going to need all those little James Potter swimmies alive if Lily and I are ever going to make you a possibility in the future.”

That startled out a laugh from Harry as James moved from his inappropriate joke to launch into a story of how he’d _actually_ managed to score a date with Lily over the Christmas break, and how there was probably hot cocoa and gingerbread biscuits for tea and crumpets right about now. Harry listened, amused and thankful that his father had taken the time and effort to pull him out of his dissociative state and bring him back to the rest of the world, which was just now starting to look like Christmas as Sirius and Remus and Lily all sat at the Slytherin table, waving merrily at James and Harry and ignoring the odd stares from the Slytherins, as they beckoned them to afternoon tea.

Tomorrow, the break would start and the lot of them would go back into their homes. James had invited Harry to stay with him and Sirius, but Harry had yet more missions to undertake that would be easier to do now that classes were out and there were far less students remaining at Hogwarts to take notice of his odd actions and disappearances.

For now, though, he let himself bask in the golden presence of new and old friends, of his parents, smiling and young and hopeful, of Sirius, outwardly brash and funny, yet shy in his slow touches against Harry’s wrist underneath the table. Tomorrow, time would restart along with his Horcrux hunt. But for now, he wanted to remain cocooned in this tableau of love and friendship and the slow, wondrous fall of snow reflected magically in the ceiling above them.

* * *

“Are you sure you don’t want to come back with?” James wheedled as Harry and Sirius stood on the train platform with him, Remus, Peter, Lily and Marlene, who was still mortified over her outburst at Harry during the Potions end-of-term practicals.

Harry had already said goodbye to the Slytherins before they left the school. He’d exchanged cautious nods with Narcissa while Regulus waved goodbye and stopped only when he realized Sirius was looking, then he sniffed and turned back into the train compartment. Lucius and Rosier had shaken Harry’s hand before he’d left the dorms, promising to tell him all that they’d find out from their parents about what was going on with the political landscape of Wizarding Britain, now that the Purebloods, or most of them anyway, had turned away from Voldemort. Almost all of the Slytherins were returning home for the holidays save for Snape, which would make the dorms a pain to live in, but altogether nothing he hadn’t endured for the past three months.

Now it was just his real friends, and his parents.

He smiled up at James, a bit distant still, wary of the stir of angry feelings that threaten to buzz up his throat. He loved James dearly, even before he’d gotten to know the sort of wacky fun-loving personality his father had, and he’d done his best to do as he’d asked and try to salve the wounds caused by the diadem Horcrux in his psyche, but it was not easy to look him in the eye and not recall with a creeping sense of horror mingled with anger and jealousy the scenes that the diadem had forced him to watch.

He remembered how Ron had been with the locket Horcrux, how angry and hate-filled he’d been, injured and hungry, cold and relying on Harry, who only had the vaguest notion of what to do next in their mission, and thought he finally understood how his best friend felt. Ron had grown up in the shadow of his brothers, all of whom he believed were somehow better than him: Bill who was handsome and had a successful job at Gringotts, Charlie who had been the Gryffindor Quidditch Seeker, Percy the Prefect and later a career politician, the twins who were pranksters and troublemakers of a sort that would give the Marauders a run for their money, but who were brilliant and successful in ways Ron thought he could only imagine. He felt it now, standing in the shadow cast by the brightness of his father’s scintillating smile and charming good looks. He felt like such a wet rag next to the glory that was James Potter.

“I—No, sorry,” he rasped quietly, averting his eyes.

James frowned minutely but smoothed his expression out with a winsome smile. “Going to miss you and Sirius at home then. I’ll tell mum and dad that I’ll try to get all of you for Easter hols instead. Don’t let me down.”

Harry tried to smile but his mind was already miles away, in places where young people with happy faces the way his father and Remus and Lily would likely never reach. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to… steal Sirius away for the holidays. I just… have stuff to do before term starts again.”

Sirius bumped his shoulder, quirking a lopsided smile. “Hey, you’re not stealing me away; I’m choosing to stay here!”

James grinned at Sirius deviously as the others laughed. “Can’t do anything about the fact that you’re practically joined at the hip now, can I? Before you know it, I’ll be godfather to your litter of little Padfoot puppies.”

Marlene groaned. “Sweet Merlin, James, don’t remind us! I’m so mortified that I actually professed my undying love to Sirius’ boyfriend. If it happens again, Black might attack me in the corridors the moment we get back.”

Sirius mock-scowled at her. “And don’t you forget it, McKinnon!”

“What’s so important that you need to stay in school anyway?” Peter wondered. “Hardly anyone’s staying in our year, except maybe Snivellus.”

Harry sighed. Snape deciding to stay for the holidays was really going to put a cramp in his plans. He’d already decided that he would use the time that students were away to sneak out to got to the Crystal Cave and retrieve the locket Horcrux. He hadn’t told Sirius yet because he had no idea how to sneak away from him; it just wasn’t going to be safe to bring him, and anyway, Harry was pretty sure the protections Voldemort laid on that cave wouldn’t allow him to bring Sirius, since Sirius was already in his majority, having turned seventeen the previous month.

“Special potions project,” Sirius answered for him, grinning.

Remus sniggered. “Is that what you call those seven minutes in heaven games now?”

Lily’s eyes widened and she laughed. “Oh my god, Remus Lupin, you did not just go there!”

James slapped Sirius’ arm. “You little devil! Don’t tell me any details!” The others laughed, though Peter looked slightly green. James gave Harry and Sirius each a one-armed hug. “Don’t let this old dog talk you into doing anything you’re not ready for, young man!” he told Harry in a mock-stern voice.

“And use protection,” Remus added with a wink, causing both Harry and Sirius to erupt into furious blushing.

“Jesus Christ!” Lily laughed as she herded the lot of them to the train. “Bye, Harry, Sirius!”

“Write back when you’ve lost your virg—mrph!”

Whatever James had been about to shout out to the rest of the remaining students on the train platform were lost as Lily shoved a palm up his face to drag him back in to the train compartment. Harry let a bemused smile paint his lips. He wanted to hug his father and Remus all over again for cracking ridiculous sex jokes to put him off the spot with how uncomfortable he’d been in answering Peter’s questions as to why he needed to stay behind, especially when James had very generously invited all the Marauders plus Harry to come spend Christmas with him. Even Lily was going, at least on Boxing Day, which was going to be her and James’ first official date.

Beside him, Sirius was still blushing furiously, the red in his cheeks having spread beautifully down his neck, disappearing below his Gryffindor scarf. “I’d apologize for Prongs and Moony, and their inability to shut the fuck up, but I realize one of them is your dad, and the other is your school teacher, so it’s probably your job to apologize to me for the way this scandal is going to besmirch my virtue,” Sirius said wryly as the two of them started off back to the school. He side-eyed Harry for a moment before knocking his elbow suggestively at Harry’s. “Although, you know I won’t be averse to some besmirching of virtues. We do have two weeks alone together after all.”

Harry let his hand slip around Sirius’, intertwining their fingers as he smile goofily in the weak winter sun. Yes, the cave needed but one day to either let him get to the Horcrux or kill him entirely. In the meantime, he still had a few days to Christmas with which to enjoy Sirius’ company uninterrupted, and alone in the Gryffindor dorms.

They didn’t quite end up in bed immediately after getting back. Harry realized that for all the ribbing James and Remus heaped on Sirius being a cad, and for all of Sirius’ talk of the besmirchment of virtues, Sirius was in fact a virgin, and Harry didn’t want to rush anything in the young romance that bloomed between them. It wasn’t like he knew the first thing about gay sex anyway either. The last time they’d been intimate, Sirius had initiated things and Harry had basically sat there and enjoyed the carnal pleasure of it all with very little participation aside from holding Sirius close in the afterglow.

He figured if there was going to be any progression in sexual relations between them, then Harry needed to know exactly what the fuck he was doing so he didn’t traumatize a seventeen year old with his bumbling attempts at gay sex.

As it were, they spent the next few days prowling the castle and pranking the remaining students who’d stayed for the holidays instead. Harry, who’d stayed on pretty much the good side of most of the professors for the entire six years of his actual teen years in Hogwarts, couldn’t believe how much the teachers and the students actually let the two of them have free reign of the castle.

The pranks they played were mostly harmless: hair color changing spells and charms to turn robes inside out were some of Sirius’ favorites and the four Gryffindors from the lower years found the charms hilarious, whether cast on them or on other people. It was a little difficult pranking Ravenclaws, given that they were constantly so serious about whatever book or paper it was they were reading when Sirius and Harry encountered them, but Sirius was adept at text reversal spells cast on books (they were apparently a favorite of his, used to piss his father off when he was kicked out of the library for being unruly as a child). Harry charmed muffins and pastries to follow one Hufflepuff third year on a late kitchen run one night, and was hailed a hero the next day by the other Hufflepuffs staying in for showering them with a free midnight snack.

The only one they didn’t prank, which Harry was adamant to enforce on Sirius, was Snape.

If Harry thought himself a wrathful, covetous wet rag when he compared himself to James, Snape was a vicious sort of shitstain on the otherwise peaceful holidays that Harry and Sirius had. He was exceedingly rude to Harry whenever Harry encountered him in the dorms to get clothes that he now kept with Sirius’ things since he’d taken to sleeping in James’ bed in the Gryffindor dorms. He complained loudly and vociferously when other people found Sirius and Harry’s pranks funny, and he was so quick to send hexes despite Harry not retaliating, that by Christmas Eve, Sirius’ knees and ankles were throbbing red from Stinging Jinxes.

“I don’t see why you don’t get hit when Snivellus gets testy with his hexes,” Sirius complained that night as they sat in front of the fire.

Harry was poring over his check list to plan for his trip to the cave while Sirius bent over his sore ankles, red and inflamed from Snape’s relentless attacks. His feet were bare and pale from the constrained blood flow due to the inflammation, and Harry found he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the way they arched and flexed as Sirius tried to massage blood flow back from his knees. He’d never even been into _feet_ before when he’d been into girls, and yet the sight of Sirius’ feet, bony ankles propped up on a couch arm and framed by the firelight in the background, stirred a sharp stab of desire right in the crotch of Harry’s pants, a reaction all the more difficult to conceal as he’d foregone robes and spent the entire day in jeans and jumpers.

He swallowed and put his check list aside. “Er, maybe you just don’t run fast enough?”

“Sure,” Sirius snorted, sliding off the couch to sit on the floor in front of Harry. He shoved one bare lithe leg mottled with purpling bruises and red welts on Harry’s lap. Harry’s prick throbbed. “You try healing all this shit.”

Harry set his parchment aside and gingerly touched a finger at the biggest bruise on Sirius’ ankle, right where the bone jutted out sharply against Sirius’ smooth pale skin. Sirius winced a little, sign of how vicious the hexes had been, and Harry pushed with his magic with a softly whispered “ _Reparifors.”_

His fingertip glowed for a moment, heat and magic tingling through his veins and smoothing over Sirius’ abused leg. He trailed his finger over the second bruise, right over the fibula, then an angry-looking welt that snaked from the back of his shin all the way up, beyond the back of his knee, hidden by the hem of his robes. Sirius groaned in delight as the spell washed over his entire leg, the bruises skipping going green and yellow and instead disappearing altogether back into creamy skin dotted occasionally by smooth dark hair.

Harry’s mouth was dry as he held one hand lightly onto Sirius by the arch of his foot, and the other, snaking up his thigh to reach his magic to the very end of the welt, right at the junction where Sirius’ leg ended and the curve of his bum started, covered in dark cotton underwear.

Sirius looked up at him with hooded dark eyes framed be equally dark, lush lashes. “You’re good at that.”

“Good at what?” Harry whispered, his fingers massaging warm skin in places he really shouldn’t be touching but he dug his fingers into the meat of Sirius’ buttock anyway, utterly unable to help himself.

Instead of answering, Sirius flattened a hand against Harry’s jumper and tugged him into a kiss. It was nothing like the kisses they’ve shared the past few days, when they were both feeling each other out if the other was serious about, as Sirius had put it, the besmirchment of virtues. This was lust and heat and pent up passion after days of dancing around each other with the promise of sexual gratification dangling like forbidden fruit between them. Sirius’ mouth tasted of fire and smoke and a hint of the pumpkin juice they’d drank at dinner as he opened his mouth and Harry eagerly plundered the warm, wet depths of him.

He sucked at Sirius’ lush bottom lip, glided his tongue against straight white teeth, along the warm inner walls of Sirius mouth until he was bearing him down on the carpeted floor, fucking his tongue into his mouth in earnest while his hands slid underneath his robes, caressing and fondling his legs, before moving further up to grab hungry handfuls of his arse. Sirius moaned and arched against him, clothed erection rubbing against Harry’s jeans-clad groin and drawing a hiss from the both of them in a way that had Harry pulling back, his eyes searching Sirius’ slack, lust-addled face.

“Should we move this inside?” Harry murmured before pressing his open mouth against Sirius’ neck, pressing his tongue against the feel of day-old teenage boy stubble, before clamping his teeth against Sirius’ pulse, pulling another sharp, luscious moan.

“No,” Sirius hissed, jabbing his hips upwards to drag his arousal against Harry’s and letting out a string of whispered expletives.

“No?”

Sirius shook his head, pulling Harry’s face back to his arched neck for him to nibble and nip and tongue at the salty skin again until Sirius was writhing and moaning. “No. I want you to fuck me here.”

If Harry had actually been a teenager as his body was, he probably would have erupted prematurely in his trousers then and there.

“Fuck,” he groaned as Sirius grabbed the hem of his jumper and tugged it over his head. He didn’t wait for further prompting as Sirius made quick work of his jeans and helpfully tugged them off his legs, before hungrily ripping at the fastenings of Sirius’ robes and pulling it off the nubile, lithe body covered only in blue cotton pants.

Sirius grinned rakishly at him. “That’s the idea.” And then he hooked his fingers over the waistband of his pants and tugged it down.

It’s not that Harry hasn’t seen another man’s naked body before. He lived in a dorm for six years of his teenage life. He camped in the wilderness of the British forests with Ron for the better part of a year on the run. Hell, even the Aurors had communal showers that he’d used after lengthy, gritty missions. In hindsight, it probably wasn’t that he wasn’t interested in men; he hadn’t really been interested in women either apart from Ginny during sixth year. It was just that he’d been so focused ridding the world of Voldemort that sexual attraction had just completely taken a backseat, and after the war, he’d been far too depressed to even have a sex drive. Getting it up often enough to impregnate Ginny at all let alone three times had been hard work.

Now though, even with the specter of depression hanging over him, it felt like the sensory nerves in his eyeballs skipped his brain entirely and traveled with a jolt of arousal straight to his cock as he allowed himself to appreciate Sirius’ long, lithe form, slim and lean with sparse dark hair speckling his calves, and a thicker darker trail that snaked from his bellybutton down to the proud jut of his hard weeping cock, and Harry realized he’d never found anything so sinfully appealing as a naked Sirius, ready and wanting. His eyes drank their fill of him sprawled on his back, his elbows propping him up, impatient for Harry’s next move, and Harry hoarded the vision before him in his memory jealously.

He couldn’t allow anyone else to enjoy the godly sight of a naked Sirius, begging for him with his body, so he snapped his fingers and a Notice-Me-Not Charm washed over them, making Sirius shiver with the tingle of Harry’s magic, skittering over his skin, before he quickly divested himself of his own pants, his cock springing out, hungry for Sirius’ touch.

“Come here,” Sirius murmured, laying back and drawing Harry close to nibble on his lips and smooth his hands over the scrawny planes of Harry’s thin chest. “God, you’re so hot.”

Harry laughed sharply. “ _Me_? Hot? Sirius, have you seen yourself?”

“If I want to find my specky, scrawny git of a boyfriend hot, I can damn well do whatever I please,” Sirius pouted as he leaned back and gently pulled Harry’s glasses off his face. Even with Harry’s terrible eyesight, Sirius looked like a demigod bathed in ardor and flame, the fire in the hearth making his pale skin glow warm and golden and delicious and Harry wanted to lick him, so he did, a path of fire from the corner of where his jaw met his ear down his neck and collarbone, and lower still to the rosy dusk of his nipple, which Harry drew delicately into his mouth, before sucking hungrily.

Harry felt more than heard the sharp gasp of breath that Sirius expelled as tongued and nipped at the tiny bud in his mouth until it was purple and sensitive, before trailing his tongue to the other side and doing the same. He felt drunk on the lusty sounds that erupted out of Sirius’ mouth as he sucked and let his hands wander down the smooth plane of his stomach, let the warm curl of pubic hair rasp against his fingertips, before finally curling his palm around the hot turgid flesh of Sirius’ erection.

The feel of another man’s cock in his hand was both the same and worlds different as palming his own. Physically, the sensation of the heavy flesh seeming to leap into his hands as Sirius pumped his hips into his touch wasn’t very different than if Harry was wanking his own cock, but the sounds that Sirius made as Harry licked a hickey into his left nipple, and wanked his cock made a galaxy of difference, and if anything, made Harry’s own prick throb even harder. He thumbed at the slit and gathered the moisture there to smooth the glide, and when that wasn’t enough, his magic supplied the lube, warm and honey-like, and so so much better.

“Fuck,” Sirius whimpered, his voice thin and high and delirious with pleasure, as Harry pumped his hand harder, faster, his brain shorting out with Sirius’ desperate cries that reached a crescendo that matched the way his body pulled taut for a moment, before the heat and pleasure peaked and Sirius was coming on his hand.

Harry felt his body go limp against his mouth, his cock dribbling the last few drops of come as Harry continued to stroke him into over-sensitivity, and then Sirius was pulling his hand away.

“God,” he breathed, lying back and staring at the ceiling to catch his breath. Harry had to agree. Sirius did look like a god when he came. He was so beautiful, Harry completely forgot about his own arousal as he leaned over and stole the racing breath from his mouth, once again plundering the plum depths and feeling like he was having an out of body experience as Sirius sucked on his tongue.

They kissed like that for a moment, Harry worshipping Sirius’ mouth until he could no longer ignore need as he pressed it against Sirius’ hip, dragging backwards and forwards for friction. Sirius pulled his mouth away and grinned wickedly as he pushed him back into a sitting position. Then, without words, he spread his knees and pulled them back, exposing the darkened wrinkled curl of flesh of his anus, winking and shuddering Harry stared and stared and felt like he wanted to devour all that this beautiful man had to offer.

“I told you I want you to fuck me,” Sirius said cheekily as Harry reached out with hesitant fingers, unsure if he dared touch that virginal flesh with the taint of his being.

“Si—are you sure?” His eyes darted to Sirius’ face, trying to discern the truth in the mischievous words. Sirius nodded. “But you’ve already come.”

“I’ll come again if you fuck me, I don’t care,” Sirius declared, and so saying, grabbed his hand and pressed his index finger to the tight furl, moaning as Harry touched him. “Please, Harry.”

The sound of his name felt like a benediction and it was all the permission Harry needed. He’d never had anal sex before, even with women, as Ginny was as vanilla a partner as one could get, and that suited Harry just fine in his previously life. He hadn’t be interested in sex before, even with her, anyway, not the way he was with Sirius now. He did remember that there had to be a few things to be done to prepare. For one, Sirius’ arsehole looked like it’d barely fit his pinky finger. Fitting an erect cock inside must take some effort to stretch the opening some. For another, he remembered Remus’ irreverent parting words about using protection.

There had to be magical ways to cleanse one’s anal cavity and protect from venereal disease, but Harry didn’t know what spells they were, so instead, he touched the entrance slowly and focused his magic to wash as gently into Sirius as he could, cleansing, protecting and then lubricating directly inside. Sirius moaned and his cock, lying spent against his stomach, jumped with sudden interest.

“Merlin,” he breathed as Harry slowly pressed a finger into the heated vise grip of Sirius’ opening. “Even your magic feels fucking sensual.”

His words, wonder-filled as they were, devolved into pleasured grunts and whimpers though as Harry moved his finger further in, pumping slowly, relishing the cling of silk, the heat of flesh. When Sirius started to move his hips in time with Harry’s finger, he added another, and a cry of surprise erupted from Sirius’ mouth.

“Did I hurt you?”

Sirius lay back gasping for breath. “Fuck, no… you touched something… inside…”

Harry smiled and realized what it was. He quested his fingers again, moving slowly, tentative so as not to hurt Sirius as he stretched him. When he found what he was looking for, Sirius arched up, body electrified, mouth forming a soundless oath, as his cock jumped again, hard in almost an instant. Smile widening, Harry proceeded to mercilessly exploit his finding, curling his fingers and adding a third, as Sirius gasped and whimpered and shook and started to fuck himself against his fingers.

“Harry… please…” he cried brokenly, reaching forward to grab at Harry only to fall back with a whine as Harry pressed on his prostate again. “I’m going to—“

Harry eased his fingers out and Sirius let out a howl of frustration. Dimly, he was aware that all the noise they were making might draw the attention of the four other Gryffindors still staying in the dorms, but Harry was past the point of caring. If they heard, it wasn’t like they were going to see anything.

He positioned himself, hovering slightly over Sirius at the V of his jackknifed legs, conjured more lube for his cock before slowly, inexorably thumbing himself down and pressing into that warm, invitingly tight heat. Sirius hissed a shuddering breath, his face twisting minutely at the discomfort of a much larger appendage invading his body. Harry didn’t stop pushing, he couldn’t anymore, so lost was he in the sensation of a hot, slick, tight hole engulfing his cock finally in that slow, sure slide home, and he let out his own stuttering breath once he was fully seated, pausing to lean his face against Sirius’ outstretched leg, kissing the bony ankle that he’d healed earlier and had led to this shining moment of passion and licked the arch of the foot that had started this whole seduction in the first place, before letting Sirius’ legs fall and wrap around his torso as if to keep him in place, as if this was exactly where he belonged.

“Harry…” he whispered, eyes dark, swallowed by night and ringed in molten silver, “Merlin, I fucking love you.”

Harry leaned further, bending Sirius almost in half as he bent to capture his lips, letting his passion speak where words failed him. When he pulled back, it was with his whole body, until only the tip of his cock was encased in Sirius’ shuddering hole, and then he pressed back in. The groan that Sirius let out was long and pleasurable and so satisfying, as he set an even pace that slowly devolved into a hard, desperate rut, Sirius’ cries egging him on.

“Oh fuck!… oh there, Harry, harder, there…”

He was powerless to resist had he even wanted to and obeyed every word and plea that dripped out of Sirius’ mouth, changing his angle slightly so he could hit his prostate unerringly, worshipping the body that gave pleasure to his. Dimly, he found himself reaching low to grasp Sirius’ cock, hard and leaking and desperate, and he pumped it in time to the pistoning of his hips.

“Harry… Harry…!” Sirius screamed his name as he came, body pulling taut, flush blooming in his neck and chest and suffusing his face with a tint of rose, more beautiful than the first time he’d come, and Harry drank in the sight of him, and pushed, once, twice, and then his passion was roaring out of him, curling across his skin and seizing through his muscles, and pouring out of his pumping cock.

Sirius grunted as Harry fucked the last throes of his pleasure into his body, and then he was collapsing, limp and weak and utterly sated. He pulled out and rolled his body to Sirius’s side so he didn’t crush him, and Sirius curled into him, eyes heavy and shimmering with the last vestiges of pleasure.

“God,” Harry gasped as he tugged weakly to wrap his arms around Sirius’ body. He’d never had sex that bordered on a religious experience before and looking back into Sirius’ eyes, he was irrationally glad that he felt the same.

“Yeah,” Sirius murmured, before wincing as a dribble of Harry’s come seeped out of his hole. “Fuck, clean up is a bitch.”

Harry laughed and patted around for Sirius’ wand and cast a cleaning spell on them both, making Sirius shiver as he snuggled close. He was too loose and sated in the afterglow to focus his magic wandless again.

“Do you think those third years will see us here in the morning if we fall asleep?”

Sirius snorted a laugh. “Never took you for an exhibitionist.”

“You were the one who wanted to fuck out in the open,” Harry replied. He supposed they should get up and get into bed, but the fire was warm and Sirius’ naked body was warmer, and all his muscles felt loose and melted against Sirius’ body.

“Adds to the excitement,” Sirius said, “Although I probably should have decided not to. I’m going to wake up with carpet burn tomorrow.”

Harry laughed and pressed a kiss to his damp, sweaty brow. “I’ll kiss it better and we can do this again.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Sirius muttered darkly.

And that night, the first since Sirius destroyed the diadem, Harry slept, and there were no dreams.

Harry woke at dawn relieved to find that Sirius had moved them to his bed in the dorms. He sat up and realized they were both still naked, legs tangled together underneath the thick down blanket. He spent a moment admiring the beautiful man next to him until Sirius’ eyes fluttered open and a slow sleepy smile stretched across lips made more luscious from being so kiss-bitten from their vigorous love-making the previous night.

“Happy Christmas, love,” Sirius murmured in that sleepy-sweet drawl of the just-awakened, and Harry felt his insides spark up like fairy lights, and for that moment, he felt like he could conquer the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I must add that I absolutely did not mean to give Harry a foot fetish. But you know, nice feet are sexy. What? What???


	21. Chapter 21

Sirius wasn’t entirely sure how he knew but he did the moment Harry made the decision to move on to searching out the next Horcrux. He’d had a quick stolen glance at the check list Harry had been agonizing over almost the entirety of the holidays, and he knew and understood very little of what Harry had written for the Horcrux hunt.

He’d crossed out the diadem and the diary, both of which had been destroyed, but there were other things, and it made Sirius shudder to think what sort of depraved mind could want to have their soul split so many times just to assure themselves of immortality, which in itself was a thing that Sirius had never considered in the realm of possibility, even for magical beings, but which Harry, by his very existence, proved was something that could be achieved. Of course Harry hadn’t split his soul five ways to Sunday, and then there’s the rub there, wasn’t it?

Everything that made up Harry now was of some fortuitous accident, born of some stupid prophecy, Lily’s desperate magic to preserve her baby’s life, and what Sirius now understood as a rift that desperate love caused in the fabric of magic. Sirius wasn’t by any means the learned scholars Croaker and Malfoy had been in Harry’s time, but the Blacks had always been attuned to magic so well that it would have been a crime not to be fully immersed in the theory of its existence, which meant Sirius was uniquely learned enough to understand that Harry’s presence, his very life, was a magical anomaly.

By all accounts, the first Killing Curse Voldemort had cast on him as a baby should have done him in. He lived instead, and that was the start of the rift, Sirius theorized. Both Croaker and Malfoy in Harry’s timeline thought that Harry surviving the Killing Curse a second time in 1998 had been the catalyst. But the initial tear had been in 1981. 1998 had been a rip, a swath of emptiness that seemed to cause all of the strange circumstances and swirl of magical impossibility that surrounded Harry until he ended up in 1977.

Sirius knew Harry understood none of this, but he was capitalizing on it anyway, at least on the part that his magic had grown so impossibly strong that he could end the first wizarding war before it had even begun, and that was why he was so obsessed with completing the Horcrux hunt and finishing Voldemort _now_. That, and the Harry that Sirius had seen in his vision from the diadem had the capability of a love so magnificent that he would rather sacrifice himself to the arduous task of repeating all of the things he’d already accomplished in his timeline again now so that the people he loved wouldn’t have to live through the horrors he’d lived. Harry seemed to think now that he was some sort of monster to feel so insecure and jealous of his father, but Sirius knew that the Harry in his vision, the Harry of 1998, still lived in the Harry that was in his arms now, sleeping. Or pretending to sleep, as it were.

Because Harry, Sirius realized, wasn’t intending to just plan during the holidays. He actually intended to leave and finish off those horrible tasks in his list, even though Sirius wanted to yell at him that there had to be a point for him to have sacrificed enough of himself, that he was allowed to be selfish, to rest on his laurels and think of what he wanted to do with his life, now that he’d been presented with an entirely different future to live. There had to be _other_ people to take up the mantle of Hero of the Wizarding World, besides this traumatized boy who looked like a stiff wind could blow him away.

But then, that was because Sirius himself was selfish and small-minded and really only thought of his own immediate future, a future he wanted with Harry. A future he probably won’t get if this Horcrux business and Voldemort kept looming in the horizon, after graduation. A future he should probably work for himself instead of leaving everything to Harry, because really, Harry needed to realize that there were people who loved him, who wanted him to live, and who would do _anything_ to help him achieve that.

So when Harry started to slowly slide his legs out of the tangle of naked, jumbled limbs beneath Sirius’ blanket, he pretended to stir out of sleep. It was late afternoon on the eve of the solstice, the day that, if Sirius’ meddling grandfather hadn’t tried to wrangle bargains for Sirius’ and Narcissa’s life debts to Harry, Harry would probably be standing in front of the Wizengamot now, or worse, well on his way to Azkaban.

He rubbed sleep out of his eyes, his own limbs still pleasurably sore from an entire morning of rolling around in bed with his boyfriend. Sirius hadn’t thought it would be the case, but it seemed once Harry had a taste of sex, he was damn near insatiable. Now though, as Harry tried to very quietly slip out of bed, Sirius had to wonder if Harry had just used sex to get Sirius out of commission so he could do whatever it was he thought he needed to do to continue his Horcrux mission.

 _Sneaky, manipulative little snake_ , he thought. Well, two could play this game. Sirius wasn’t a Slytherin, but he’d been raised by ones who practically institutionalized Slytherin tendencies, with countless generations of Blacks lying, manipulating and conniving their way into power. Sirius only needed to access that bit of himself that he always denied having, but possessed deep in his soul anyway.

“Where are you going?” he asked sleepily, making grabby hands to keep Harry from slithering away.

“Er… toilet,” was the mumbled reply.

Sirius almost smirked. This was too easy. “Oh, ok, yeah, me too. Gotta clean off all the spunk. _Scourgify_ only does so much after so many romps.”

“Er, we can shower together later instead,” Harry said. “You sleep, we’ll shower after and you can do that thing you do—“

Sirius gave him a pointed stare. “Harry, I think if we fuck again any time soon, your prick is liable to fall off your body entirely.”

Harry scratched his head, appearing to think quickly. “So yeah, you should go back to sleep; I know you’re sore from all of the weird positions, and I really only need to take a piss.”

“My limbs are working perfectly fine and we’ve been sleeping all afternoon.” Sirius rolled his eyes.

“But what about your—erm—“ Harry blushed violently as he gestured wildly at Sirius’ bum, which certainly was smarting a good bit. Harry was handsy when he fucked, and Sirius’ arse was probably turning black and blue with finger-shaped bruises all around, not to mention his arsehole felt like it’d met with half a dozen centaurs with how abused it felt from all the finger- and dick-fucking of lube and come into it.

“I’ll heal it while we shower,” Sirius replied uncaringly as he stood naked and unself-conscious. “Come on. I feel like we could both really use a good long soak; you must be just as sore, and we’re both really starting to reek.”

Harry didn’t move. He sat at the edge of the bed instead, looking back at Sirius helplessly. “Sirius, you need to let me go. What I’m about to do, where I’m going—it’s dangerous.”

“Oh, so standing in front of the toilet with the seat up while you take a piss is dangerous? Expecting to finda basilisk snaking out of the plumbing again?”

Harry glared at him in frustration. “You know that’s not what I mean.”

“No,” he replied. “Actually I don’t, and I wouldn’t know if you don’t tell me. And since you’re not telling me anything, I’m not about to agree to it.”

Harry passed a hand over his face and then moved it back over his hair, tugging in frustrated annoyance. “Look, I need to continue the Horcrux hunt, and the place I’m going to—it’s not going to be safe for you. I wouldn’t live with myself if I put you in the sort of danger I’ve faced when I went there with Dumbledore, and I _know_ it’s dangerous for you; I went there when I was in sixth year too.”

Sirius wracked his memory of the vision to try to remember which Horcrux it was that Harry had searched for with Dumbledore. “You mean the cave? With the Inferi?”

Harry nodded somberly. “Yes. The Inferi is just one of the protections Voldemort put on that cave to protect the Slytherin Locket he used as a Horcrux. I don’t want you anywhere near it.”

Sirius rolled his eyes. “Harry, in case it’s escaped your notice, I’m not some fair-haired damsel-in-distress waiting for you to rescue me or sit around and wait for you to come home to me. I don’t work that way, and you know it. I agreed to stay away when you went hunting that snake in the Chamber of Secrets, but I’m not about to let you get yourself in deep shit without help any more than that.”

“Sirius—“

Sirius reached across the bed and draped his arms around his boyfriend’s thin shoulders, hugging Harry from behind. “Harry, I know you think you have to take on the world by yourself, but you don’t have to, just as you don’t have to protect me from things when I help you. And I _want_ to help you, Harry. I can’t let you go rushing off to danger and getting yourself killed without at least trying to do something to stop that from happening. And if I can’t stop it, then I have to help you fight it, don’t I?”

“You don’t need to do that,” Harry said quietly, miserably, though he leaned his head against Sirius’, as if he couldn’t help but seek comfort.

Sirius kissed his cheek tenderly. “I know I don’t need to, but I want to. Now, come on. We’ll shower and then we’ll talk about what the hell it is we’re supposed to do. I know you’ve done this before, but if what I’d seen of your life has any truth to it, I’m not letting the two of us go mucking around blind the way Dumbledore had you do in your timeline.”

Harry detailed out what he knew of the Crystal Cave’s protective magic once they were both showered and the both of them freshly healed of the bruises and scratches they’d inflicted on each other in the course of several rounds of mind-bending, limb-straining, vigorous sex. Harry, Sirius realized, had been agonizing over how he would go about the cave’s protections for far longer than Sirius thought, and he’d arrived at a number of confounding conclusions.

“So, there’s a blood sacrifice needed on the door to get in first, then a lake infested with Inferi,” he muttered once Harry had rattled what he could remember of his own harrowing experience in that cave. “And Voldemort isn’t content with mindless, shuffling death golems, ready to spring out of the water to attack. He had to put some dumb protective magic on a dinky boat that only allows one adult wizard to ride it.”

Harry nodded. “The only reason that Dumbledore and I even managed was because I was still sixteen at the time. The magic on the boat didn’t recognize me as a full-grown wizard.”

Sirius bit his lip, thinking. “But you said Regulus did this before… when he became a Death Eater. How’d he do it? Did he go alone?”

“No. Kreacher went with him.”

Sirius made a face. “Kreacher? That miserable little elf that Mother used as a poor excuse for parenting when bringing us up?”

Harry frowned. “He wasn’t that bad when you left him to me after you’d died in my timeline, you know. He was extremely loyal to Regulus, and he was loyal enough to me when I became his master. You just need to be kind to him.”

Harry couldn’t have confounded Sirius more than if he said he was actually gay for Voldemort, who was probably fairly old and ugly with all the Dark Arts he’d practiced. “I’ll be nice to him when he learns how to not parrot all the bigoted language he’d learned from my family. He disgusts me.”

Harry shook his head in disbelief but let it go. “Anyway, Regulus went with Kreacher, in my timeline at least, I think he died there and left the locket with Kreacher so he could try to destroy it. Kreacher wasn’t able to destroy it though, and it was stolen from your house after you died, but Regulus and Kreacher did what they could, when they could.”

“Well, at least my brother and that stupid elf are good for _some_ thing,” Sirius muttered. “What else do we need to know about the cave?”

Harry let out a breath. “The locket is immersed in this green potion that can’t be drained or gotten around any other way than drinking it until the container is empty and you can get the locked at the bottom of the basin.”

Sirius nodded thoughtfully. He recalled the effects of that potion from the vision. “The Potion of Despair.”

“It weakened Dumbledore, having to drink it, and… and I had to force it on him,” Harry said miserably.“He wouldn’t have died when we got back to Hogwarts if drinking that potion… if me forcing him to drink that potion hadn’t so severely weakened him.” He turned to Sirius, his eyes shining with earnest, unshed tears. “When we get there, you don’t touch or go anywhere near that potion. _I_ ’ll drink it, like I should’ve done when Dumbledore and I went there. If I can’t finish… Sirius, you have to promise me you’ll make me drink all of it so we can get the locket.”

Sirius looked at him like he was an idiot and squared his shoulders. “Harry, you know I love that noble, self-sacrificing arse of yours more than life itself, but you don’t get to tell me to do something that cruel and hurtful to _you_ , of all people.” He shook his head to tell Harry he’d hear no more protestations. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there. For all you know, we might even come up with something inventive to get around it completely.”

Harry looked like he wanted sorely to believe him, but having experienced it all firsthand, thought they were being irrationally optimistic about the whole thing. “What about the boat, then?”

Sirius grinned. “I’ve thought of something. Prongs and I used to do this when Moony feels all guilty and goes into Prefect mode and uses the map against us, when we’re pranking. I’m hoping he left his Cloak somewhere among his things. Merlin knows he won’t need it to stir up trouble at home.”

The island where the Crystal Cave was located was in some remote part of England Sirius had never been to. Harry told him, as they approached the cave entrance that the location had once been some sort of leisure park where Muggles go to during the summer, as a day trip sort of holiday. When Voldemort appropriated the location as a hiding place for his Horcrux, he’d placed Muggle-repelling enchantments to keep them away. He’d been so convinced that wizards lived their lives so completely separate from Muggles that no wizard would stumble on such well-known a Muggle location. Perhaps that was why he persecuted non-Pureblood wizards so much; to avoid having his hidden soul fragments discovered in Muggle areas that the muggleborn wizards may have access.

It was close to dusk already and with the weak winter light dying, the lake waters were black and icy and ominous, the cave entrance was collapsed in with black granite, and the door which Harry described was sealed shut. The anti-Apparition wards apparently only covered the cave as Harry was able to Apparate them on a tiny strip of the island shore line. The weather was bitterly cold and Sirius had to tuck his nose into his scarf. He wondered how Harry managed to fare just wearing several layers of jumpers under his cloak, but then he supposed his overpowered magic must keep him warm.

Sirius moved towards the door, drawing his wand out for the blood sacrifice, but Harry stopped him.

“Wait. Voldemort wouldn’t want to cut himself just to get into his own hidey-hole. He’d try to ward the door one way and still keep a convenient means of entrance for himself.” So saying, he crouched in front of thedoor, studying the latch. There was no keyhole or anything Sirius thought might be enchanted to control the entrance apart from offering blood on the aged, rusted door handle, but Harry merely closed his eyes and hissed something. The latch clicked and the door creaked open.

Sirius stared at him. “Fuck, you’re a Parselmouth?”

“Yeah,” Harry answered. “I thought you knew. How do you think I sealed the Chamber of Secrets again with so little damage to Myrtle’s bathroom?”

Sirius shrugged helplessly, staring at his boyfriend in awe. “I dunno. I thought you used the diary to do it. My working theory on the magical transference of the ability is that Voldy only passed it to you when he tried to kill you in 1981 and his soul got stuck on your forehead. I figured it would’ve gone away when he killed the soul fragment in ’98.”

Harry looked at him strangely. “Well it didn’t. Does it matter now whether or not I am? At least we don’t have to cut ourselves just to get in.”

Sirius shrugged again. He supposed it didn’t. The ability to speak Parseltongue was highly prized among Dark Wizards, and only passed down through bloodline. He wondered what that meant for Harry. For James.

Inside the cave was nearly pitch black save for the eerie green glow coming from a pedestal in the center of the cave, surrounded on all sides by placid black waters that probably drained out underground to the lake outside. The feeling of something eldritch, something utterly dark and malevolent lurked in the thick, impenetrable gloom and Sirius found himself reaching automatically for Harry’s hand even as he cast a _Lumos_ to give them both the most meager amount of light to search out the boat.

“Why does my magic feel so faint?” he asked in a whisper. The sinister feeling in the cave made his voice shake so he couldn’t speak above a soft hiss of breath.

Harry shook his head, the movement of his black hair like a Rorschach blot in the heavy darkness. “It’s not your magic; the cave is sucking out all the light. Or… maybe not the cave but what’s _in_ it.”

“Fuck,” Sirius muttered as he hurried after Harry.

The boat was Disillusioned, but Harry found it with practiced ease, as if it was only yesterday that he’d been here, not decades past as his age suggested. He unmoored it from the cavern wall and boarded gingerly.

“It won’t take you,” he told Sirius matter-of-factly. “I hope you’ve planned something good to do about this.”

Sirius nodded and reached into his robe pocket, shaking out James’ Invisibility Cloak and something he’d spelled tiny, which he now enlarged to its proper size. The Silver Arrow broomstick he’d packed was a priceless one-of-a-kind classic inherited from his Grandfather when he was five. He brought it to Hogwarts when he was eleven to show off at a time when he thought he would end up in Slytherin. James thought the broom was old and clunky and slow compared to the fancy Comet 140s the two of them now used for Quidditch, but it would do the trick for flying low, stable, and unobtrusively.

He mounted the broom and wrapped the Cloak around himself. “Prongs and I would do this whenever Moony thinks we’re being too pigheaded about pranking Snivellus. You know our map can tell when people are about, and I found we could get around the Homonculous Charm if James flew closely enough, like directly on top of where I was, while wearing the Cloak. So we could trick the map into thinking only I’m around and therefore not up to no good, when in fact, James is lurking just above, invisible, and ready to throw dung bombs are Snivelly.”

Harry grinned at him. “That’s fucking genius. You think it’ll work?”

“Worth a try,” he said and passed his wand to Harry. “Here, you take this. You’re going to need the light anyway so I can see where to follow. I’ll fly directly above the boat as close as I can to where you are, and that should trick whatever enchantment Voldemort put on that thing.”

“We’ll have to make sure your broom span falls within the boat’s boundaries, just in case, since the Inferi start attacking the minute something goes out of the boat. The Cloak really should be helping with that, keeping you hidden and undetectable, but I don’t really want to risk getting attacked by zombies without even getting the locket.”

Sirius nodded and steeled himself as he kicked up the broom. He pulled the hood of the Cloak over his head to render himself fully invisible and maneuvered the broom directly on top of Harry, so that the hem of the Cloak brushed Harry’s forehead as the boat bobbed in the water. They held their breath and waited in trepidatious silence in case the trick didn’t work. The waters remained placid, unbroken.

“Fuck,” Harry muttered as he took to the oars, gripping Sirius’ wand between his teeth.

Sirius was too terrified of disturbing the lake waters to answer. He flew low and close. Harry’s progress across the still waters was slow and arduous as rowing a boat was manual effort. When Harry finally reached the shores of the tiny outcropping of rock in the middle of the lake. It was barely large enough to drag the boat in so it didn’t float away. Harry jumped on dry land and found a rickety post to tie the boat’s stern.

Sirius let out a puff of breath as he landed a bit further inland, and pulled off the Cloak. “Feels like we were going to get done in for a moment there.”

Harry nodded, grave and silent as he handed Sirius back his wand and the two of them climbed the steep stone stair that led up to the glowing pedestal. He grabbed Sirius by the wrist, just as they reached the basin. It was small, only about two handspans in diameter, but rather deep, and filled with what looked like a quart of a runny phosphorescent liquid. Sirius could see the golden locket sitting at the bottom of the basin. A crystal goblet stood on the pedestal next to it.

“Sirius,” Harry intoned, voice deep and commanding and laced with magic that Sirius was hard-pressed to resist, “no heroics. I’ll drink the potion. If for any reason, I can’t finish it, you need to force me to drink it.”

“Harry—“

“No. I’m not arguing with you about this. You either agree to it or get on the boat and leave. I’ll finish this myself.”

Sirius pressed his lips and stared back until Harry nodded and grabbed the goblet, eyes still trained on Sirius as he dipped and filled the goblet. Sirius felt his skin crawl as Harry put the goblet to his mouth and drank. Even in the gloom, Sirius could see the minute shudder that skittered across Harry’s shoulders as he swallowed and filled the goblet again. Harry did this silently with no outward sign of distress for long moments, apart from the steady tightening of his grip on Sirius’ arm.

The basin was half empty, the face of the locket almost breaching the surface of the potion, when the first sign of distress manifested in a sudden widening of Harry’s bright green eyes, glowing almost in the reflective light emitted by the potion, dimmed and then flared, his pupils contracting as his hand on Sirius’ wrist started to shake.

“No…” he muttered, shaking his head almost violently, as if to dispel whatever image he saw in his mind’s eye, and then drank another mouthful of the foul liquid. This time, he doubled over and nearly dropped the goblet to the ground as he shook. “Please… no…!”

Helpless, Sirius held onto him with one hand, his other still trapped in Harry’s bruising grip, his fingers starting to grow numb from the lack of circulation. “Harry—“

Harry shoved the goblet at him. “Fill it!” he cried, and Sirius hurried to comply. Harry grabbed the goblet back and swallowed and cried out again, his voice sounding tight and broken and nothing at all like the powerful wizard whose voice was nothing short of an Imperius command when he spoke earlier.

“Harry, let me—“

“No!” Harry shouted, shaking off Sirius’ hand at his shoulder. He still clung to his wrist, his grip almost enough to grind the delicate bones beneath the skin. “I need to—“ He drank another mouthful and doubled over again, whimpering. His eyes watered and tears started to run. The look on his face made Sirius want to burst to tears himself. “No… Jamie… Al…”

But Harry was nothing if not tenacious as he took the final mouthful of liquid. Whatever illusion the potion made him see made him double back and collapse to his knees as he cried with the most pitiful, broken sound Sirius had ever heard in his life, “Please!… not my sons…!”

“Harry!” Sirius cried, petrified with fear, as Harry hauled himself up with one hand, his knees skidding and sliding down jagged rocks that tore even the sturdy denim fabric of his jeans and ripped into the exposed skin of his knees.

“Fill it!” Harry yelled at him, and Sirius took the goblet, tears in his eyes as he took another measure and handed it back to Harry, who poured half of the liquid down his throat and almost choked as his face streamed with salty tears. “Please no more… I can’t… Ron… Hermione, Remus…!”

Sirius didn’t know if Harry was reliving all the horrors of his family and friends dying, from the consumption plague that was borne of the rips in magic, or the horrors of the war that he lived through. “Harry, let me help you. Please!”

“No!” Harry cried, shoving him away, eyes wild and unseeing, and letting go of his abused wrist finally, as he poured the last of the liquid in the goblet into his mouth, swallowing convulsively, and then keening like a pitiful, kicked animal. “Please… not Sirius…! You took them all already! Let me have him…!”

He hauled himself up again, weak with the effects of the potion, and scrambled another glassful. The basin was almost empty. There were maybe three more draughts left. Harry poured what was in the cup into his mouth, the liquid running over and spilling down the sides of his face like a trail of glowing green blood as he swallowed and convulsed, screaming in despair. Sirius watched in horrified fascination as whatever amount that spilled from Harry’s mouth filled back into the basin and he tried to go to Harry to help him, but he was limp and unmoving.

“Harry?” he whispered, terrified that in his weakened state, he’d choked and died, but as he cradled him close, he found the faint jump of a pulse in his stubble-covered throat. He’d only collapsed and passed out. Sirius frantically slapped his face to wake him. “Harry, please wake up!”

His eyelids fluttered but he didn’t wake, his face seemingly frozen in a mask of horror and despair. Sirius grabbed his wand and cast _Aguamenti_ to try to splash some water into Harry’s pale, unmoving face, but the stream of water died as the magic of the cave dampened his power. He cast around for anything he could use to wake his unconscious, suffering boyfriend who seemed to be in the throes of an unending nightmare, but there was nothing to be done short of the getting water from the lake, which was not an option. Harry wasn’t waking, and they needed to finish this now, before either of them did something stupid like disturb the water and set the Inferi on themselves.

“Fuck it,” he muttered and grabbed the goblet from Harry’s grip. It was a struggle. Even unconscious and trapped in a nightmare, Harry wouldn’t relinquish the task to Sirius. He felt weak and helpless, especially as he was also fighting against the unconscious _Imperius_ command that Harry had used on him. “Please,” he whispered, touching Harry’s face, streaked with tears and spilled potion. “Let me help you.”

He was crying by the time he managed to pry the goblet from Harry’s cold, unrelenting grip. He never thought himself particularly weak, but the oppressive, unnamable fear the cave generated seemed to compound the already palpable fear he had that there was something severely wrong going on with Harry, as he twitched and shuddered like he was having a seizure, even as he was unconscious. He needed to finish this now, and then he’ll work on trying to rouse Harry out of his nightmare.

The liquid in the basin was unexpectedly cold as it slid down his throat as he drank, but it immediately turned into a raging fire in the pit of his stomach, calling to mind a particularly harrowing Firewhiskey binge he and the other Marauders had gone on when James turned fifteen and Sirius was able to nick a bottle of Ogden’s from Hagrid’s hut. They’d been miserable with their upset stomachs and pounding hangovers, and Sirius and Remus had spent all of the next day wrapped around the toilets in the dorms, puking their guts out. It was so unpleasant, in fact, that he nearly retched and brought it all up, but he gripped the edge of the basin and forced himself to breathe through the pain, until he could take another mouthful.

This was worse still, a sharp stab of pain that blazed an inferno from his intestines all the way to his throat, making his tongue loll and his eyes water, and he recalled an instance when as a child, he and Regulus had been afflicted with Dragon Pox. His mum had been so mad because Sirius had gotten it first and she’d used Kreacher to trap Sirius in his bedroom so as to not spread the Pox to his brother and his cousins, who were visiting for the summer holiday. Sirius had gotten past Kreacher when Kreacher was busy heading off Evan, Narcissa and Mafalda. Mum had been so mad at him for infecting all three cousins and Regulus to boot that she’d totally ignored that he had the pox and punished him with a series of increasingly violent _Steleus_ hexes, that started out with a mild tickle up his nose and until the sneezes were so violent, he was convulsing, his stomach twisting with the force of each sneeze by the time his father removed the hex on him.

His eyes watered and he gasped for breath as he waited for the spasm of pain to pass. A curl of admiration settled deep in his gut. He’d only had two mouthfuls and already he was weak in the knees. Harry had nearly finished half the potion before he’d even shown any sign of pain or discomfort.

There was only one goblet full of the potion left and Sirius scooped it into the cup and swallowed, feeling his chest constrict as the potion exploded a world of pain beneath his skin and he shut his eyes and sagged against the pedestal, overwhelmed by the stabbing palpitations of pain, harkening to when Remus, in his werewolf form, would unknowingly swipe playfully but far too forcefully at Padfoot and Prongs. He wasn’t sure entirely why the pain seemed to call up this memory. It wasn’t particularly bad, though the dread he’d felt on transforming, worrying for himself if Remus had drawn blood, worrying for Remus as the guilt he’d feel if he’d somehow infected his best friends, was almost as physically painful as the memory of awful jinxes and hexes his mother had inflicted on him in the name of discipline.

He hacked up another breath, before dragging himself to his feet. The locket lay in the center of the basin, and he swiped it quickly, looping the chain around his left wrist, the one Harry had completely mangled and injured, so it wouldn’t fall, before he turned to Harry, aiming one particularly sharp, painful slap at Harry’s cheek that made his palm bloom with pain and heat. Harry’s eyes snapped open and he let out a keening scream. His glasses had fallen off his face and cracked on the jagged stones on the floor. Sirius swiped that too before grabbing Harry’s shoulders and shaking him hard until it felt like his bones would rattle.

“Harry, stop it! Wake the fuck up! I have the locket and we need to go!”

It was an agonizingly long moment before awareness and recognition seeped back into Harry’s tortured eyes and he stopped screaming. His voice was raspy and weak as he asked, “What happened?”

Sirius shook his head abruptly. “No time for that now.” He didn’t want to spend another moment in this godforsaken place.

Harry was shaking so hard he could barely walk. Sirius shoved the locket over Harry’s head so that it dangled at his neck, half-hidden by his three layered jumpers, and unwound his scarf and wrapped it around Harry’s neck. When the shivering didn’t stop, he ripped his cloak off and bundled Harry into it, before shoving him into the boat. He was worried that Harry might be too weak to row himself out to the other side, so he unmoored the boat, grabbed his broom and wrapped himself with the Invisibility Cloak.

He intended to give the boat a massive kick to get it moving and give Harry a head start and use the speed of the broom to catch up. He would have succeeded, the boat was moving and Harry, weak and dehydrated, scrambled at the oars, but he’d overshot with the cloak and a portion of the tail twigs of his broom stuck out. He barely noticed it until he heard a splash in the water.

Harry was pushing as much as his flagging strength allowed him to row, but even in the darkness, Sirius could see something move, a pale hand emerged from the murky depths and snagged on one of the oars. It was slimy and bloodless, two fingers rotted off the hand, and a ring shone, dazzling and familiar in one of the three remaining fingers. He stopped and turned, horror dawning as the Inferius tried to pull itself from out of the water. Wet, tangled black hair broke the surface and a face that couldn’t have come not even from Sirius’ worst nightmares emerged.

“Regulus?” he gasped, his heart constricting.

Harry yelped as the Inferius of Regulus Black, an adult, very dead Regulus Black flailed in the waters, waking the other Inferi as they started to paddle with heavy dead limbs towards the boat.

“Harry!” Sirius shrieked, clutching the Cloak to his chest, the hood falling off his head, as he felt himself zoom backwards suddenly as a hand emerged from the water and gripped the tail of his broom. “Fuck—Harry!”

Harry was fighting off the swarm of Inferi as they grabbed at the oars which he used to try to shove them off. If there’d only been a few, he might have been successful, but there were hordes of them as they clamored at the side of the boat, threatening to capsize it.

“Fire, Sirius!” Harry bellowed, blasting a few of the Inferi with a lightning spell that crackled over the surface of the water, making the limbs that were trying to climb the side of the boat sizzle and catch aflame.

“ _Incendio!_ ” Sirius’ spell blasted a huge tongue of yellow flame at the Inferius holding onto his broom. He zoomed upwards and started attacking the creatures swarming at the boat. “There’s too many of them!”

Harry fought off a string of shuffling, grabbing limbs as he struggled to maintain control of the boat. Sirius could feel his strength flagging as he clutched the neck of his broom in one hand and gripped his wand in the other. The oppressively dark air of the cave ate into his fire spells killing the flames before it could do more than lick an Inferius limb and singe it instead of turning it to ash. Diving low, he pushed shoved his wand into his robes and let go of his broom to use both hands to shove the boat’s stern forward, making it lurch free of a few of the shufflers and move that much closer to the shore, but there were just too many. For every Inferius they fought off ten more took its place, flailing in the waters, making it look as if the lake was teeming with fish when in fact it was teeming with death.

Harry pushed himself up to his feet just as Sirius’ broom was grabbed again, this time to his horror, by tiny fingers that looked like it belonged to a child, a dead zombie of a child, no older than five years old. The Inferius was strong beyond that of any living child as it latched onto to the twigs of Sirius’ beloved Shooting Star broom and started to tug itself up. He tried swooping and twisting to dislodge the Inferius off his broom but it held on tenaciously, crawling up the O-ring that held the bristles together and grabbing at Sirius’ back with icy, slimy, crackling fingers.

“Aah!” Sirius screamed as the Inferius grabbed his hair, ripping a huge chunk of hair and scalp off his head. Pain bloomed, throbbing and pulsing. He lost altitude and nearly dove nose first into the waters before he managed to catch himself and spin away, Inferius still holding onto his hair, his head.

“ _Incendio!”_ Harry roared and a large column of flame shot from the tip of his outstretched finger to incinerate the Inferius at Sirius’ back, singing his hair and neck, but otherwise leaving him unharmed. He could feel blood pouring down from the exposed flesh of his scalp. Harry wasn’t done though as more Inferi swarmed towards them. “ _Fiendfyre!”_

Diabolical blue flame shot from his palms and raged all around the surface of the lake, burning and destroying everything in sight. Harry tilted to the side of the boat, dipping his hand in the water and roaring the dark spell again. Sirius had never thought that Inferi made any sound apart from the sound of their heavy limbs shuffling, but apparently, the creatures knew how to scream, and scream they did as the demonic fire razed an inferno below the water’s surface, super-heating it into boiling. Harry’s eyes glowed, bright and green and blazing with the ecstasy of unfettered power.

The Fiendfyre blazed brighter, roaring so high in columns of bright flame that Sirius had to spin and roll to avoid the flames from licking his infinitely inflammable broom. Down below, he realized Harry was in danger of being incinerated himself, as hellish shapes of demonic, mythological creatures, harpies and chimera, hydra and basilisk and a flaming blue phoenix, formed within the flames, licking dangerously close to the boat.

“Harry!” he screamed, but Harry wasn’t moving. He stood in the center of the boat, exulting in the carnage, his face illuminated by the malevolent light of the Fiendfyre, his skin flushed a mottled red with the heat. The locket blazed golden at his throat. “Harry the spell is out of control!”

Harry laughed, his voice deep and ringing and frightening Sirius to his core.

“Fuck! HARRY!”

He spun out of another plume of flame emitted by a fire-born minotaur as it destroyed more of the Inferi. Harry had his arms held out, orchestrating the destruction as if he was conducting a choir. Sirius reached low, snagged his hand on one of Harry’s outstretched wrists and _grabbed_ , hauling him up as hard as he could even as he dug his heels into his broom and soared upwards. The heat was unbearable, drying the tears that spilled down his cheeks as soon as they broke from the dam of his eyelids; his arm, the one holding onto Harry felt like it would rip out of its socket. Harry was still laughing, loud and ragged and crazed, even as he righted himself behind Sirius on the broom, grabbing him around the waist and howling in his ear as Sirius shot them past the fiendish menagerie of flame-born creatures, all the way through the tiny door.

They skidded down to the shore on the other side of the door, rocks and sand scraping their hands, faces and knees, gashing Sirius’ bare thighs and shins. He scrambled up to his feet as the Fiendfyre tried to follow them out, and slammed the door at the flames, yelling a terrified “ _Colloportus!_ ” to prevent the flames from spitting out.

And finally it was over. Harry’s face were streaked with soot and tears, his laughter had turned to loud shaking sobs. Sirius hauled him to his feet and pulled his hand back, forming a fist and punched him in the face.

“You absolute fucking wankstain of a bastard!” he cried as Harry’s head snapped back, eyes widening, a grunt of pain erupting from his now-bleeding mouth, before Sirius grabbed him close and sobbed hysterically into his shoulder.

The two of them clung to each other in the gathering darkness and the howling freezing wind, sobbing and crying until the adrenaline fizzled and died in their veins. When finally, even their exhaustion could not bear the cold, Harry wordlessly put his hands around Sirius and Apparated them away, locket safely tucked into the neck of his jumper, and Sirius still shuddering in his arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How ready were you really for Dark Arts-drunk Harry and BAMF Sirius? Rereading this for a bit of proofing makes me feel like I'd piss myself with what happened to the two of them.
> 
> Harry casting Fiendfyre was inspired by [this scene](https://www.pinterest.ph/pin/440367669784585574/) in _The War of the Twins_ of Raistlin Majere burning the dead village of Que-Shu. Raistlin is one of my absolute favorite book characters of all time: a dark wizard with a tortured soul. He's whiny and incredibly self-centered and just plain evil, but he has such an incredible redemption arc, I can't even.
> 
> Alternatively, I also think of the scene in LoTR where Elrond yelled to Isildur, "Cast it in the flame!" and Isildur grins malevolently and whispers, "No." (movie scene, I never read LoTR.)
> 
> Freaking iconic.


	22. Chapter 22

For someone who had spent sixteen years of his young life in relative comfort and carefree happiness despite his miserable childhood and home life, Sirius took everything that had happened in the cave with surprising equanimity, responding with intelligent, quick decisive action when Harry presented all of the cave protections when they were discussing their plan of attack. He’d been terrified inside the cave, sure, but that was only to be expected as Harry himself had been terrified when he’d first gone there with Dumbledore when he was sixteen. In fact, Sirius was surprisingly level-headed with his reactions—to the crossing of the lake, the potion, obtaining the Horcrux and finishing their quest, even to the Inferi, though his magic had been largely ineffective to save either of them. He had not been prepared for Harry dabbling with Dark magic to destroy the cave and all of the Inferi Voldemort had left there to protect his sliver of soul, but his quick thinking, superb flying, and his understanding of how the Dark Arts affected the magic-user saved both their lives anyway, a feat Harry would not have believed of the rash, irrational Sirius Black of his timeline, who’d been burning for action and freedom and the taste of blood fighting against Voldemort and hunting Peter Pettigrew after twelve years of Azkaban and nearly a year confined in the mausoleum that was 12 Grimmauld Place.

He had not been prepared for Harry Apparating through the nigh impenetrable wards that protected Hogwarts, wards that had been built over the centuries with the combined magic of its headmasters and faculty, past and present, and imbued with the feelings of safety of the students it protected. He had not been prepared for the fact that Harry, since the first drop of the Potion of Despair passed through his lips, was living a waking nightmare, one that pulled him through the chaos and terror of the second Wizarding War.

Fiendfyre was just the beginning. In the moment that Harry stood in the boat, surrounded on all sides by shuffling Inferi hungry for his living flesh, Harry had descended into a nightmare version of the events in his sixth year in the cave with Dumbledore. Whatever spell it had been Dumbledore had used to destroy the Inferi were beyond the bounds of Harry’s knowledge, but his magic knew by instinct how to protect the mortal shell of its host. The malevolent swirl of suggestion from the locket at Harry’s throat made for a literal firestorm of the overpowered Dark curse that Harry wreaked upon the interloper who dared beset him with the dregs of their necromancy.

When he took Sirius in his arms to Apparate back, his mind was not in the present, not in 1977 but whirling in 1997, of his and Dumbledore’s return to Hogwarts. The only thing that rang through his head as the suction-swirl of Apparition took them was that when they returned, the Dark Mark would be floating above the Astronomy Tower. That he needed to stop Draco leading the Death Eaters to the castle, attacking his friends, _sleeping students_ in their beds, Greyback mutilating Bill’s face…

He was already weak from the effects of the potion and had drawn on the deepest parts of his core to cast the Fiendfyre. When he Apparated, his magic only understood that he was responding to a call to arms at the Astronomy Tower. It didn’t care that 1977 was in relative peacetime with the war only brewing in the horizon. It didn’t care that there were a dozen students who would be left defenseless if he ripped through the wards of Hogwarts, and it certainly didn’t care that ripping through said wards prompted a backlash so severe it blasted him and Sirius to the floor, flattening and nearly squashing Sirius against him, breaking ribs and arms and bones he didn’t know he even had. The pop of Apparition exploded the complex array of telescopes and sextants and other star-gazing paraphernalia littering the room. Shards of glass and tiny bits of metal from destroyed astrolabes embedded into every bit of exposed skin and hair he had, and it was only by the smallest measure of awareness that he’d curled his magic, the very last dregs of it, around Sirius to protect him from the worst of it.

“Motherf—“ The expletive died on Sirius’ lips as the wailing sound of Hogwarts’ ward alarms and the distant shouts and screams of the faculty, awakened by the extraordinary slap of magic as the wards snapped back into place greeted them.

Scrambling to his feet, Sirius made a quick assessment and appeared to determine that he was mostly alive, otherwise unharmed save for the burns and singes and cuts he’d sustained in the cave and the made dash to escape the Fiendfyre. He was exhausted, but that was to be expected after they survived the worst of what was basically a zombie incursion and he looked around, then down.

“Harry!”

Harry had collapsed from effort it had taken to bend Hogwarts to his will and accept them entering in a spot it had protected zealously. The drain was enormous, turning his tan skin grey, his lips nearly blue from the shock of broken ribs and collarbone, a dislocated shoulder, when Sirius was hurled against him when they Apparated in.

But Harry still wasn’t in the present. His mind was stuck in a loop of 1997, Malfoy breaking Death Eaters into Hogwarts. He opened his eyes, bare without his glasses, his vision fuzzy and tinged with blood where bits of shrapnel had torn into his face, his forehead, his eyelids. He appeared as a vision of a horror story gone wrong, bloodied and broken, but unbowed.

“Malfoy—“ he croaked at Sirius as Sirius tried to help him up. He hurt everywhere. Every part of his body seemed on fire, whether from the physical injuries he’d sustained or the burning empty feel of his magic drained. “Malfoy—the Cabinet—!”

Sirius wrapped an arm around him, propping him up against his side so he could help him walk. “Hush, Harry, we’re back, we’re safe. We made it back! You made us back.”

Harry shook his head, delirium making his eyes fever-bright. “You don’t understand! Bellatrix and the Carrows! Greyback… they’re all here! Snape, he—“

Whatever else he’d been about to say was lost as the person whose name he’d just uttered emerged from thick shadows shrouding the exit corridor from the Tower’s Observatory room to the main parts of the castle.

As a teenager, Severus Snape looked very little like the bony, sallow-faced greasy-haired man with a giant hooked nose and a perpetual glower that had seemed defiantly hateful when he’d drawn his wand at Albus Dumbledore in 1997. His young face now was still bony, still pale, but lacking the level of malice that had dripped from his bushy, dark brows and flat, reflective black eyes as an adult. He was far too skinny to have filled out the fancier professorial robes he’d worn in Harry’s timeline.

Harry saw none of that as Snape turned to the two of them, smiling nastily as Sirius looked up, annoyance coloring his weary features.

“What do you want, Snivellus? We’re a little busy at the moment,” Sirius snapped as he helped Harry limp from the exposed balcony of the tower to pick through the remnants of the destruction Harry’s Apparition had wrought.

“Now, what could the resident delinquent of Gryffindor be doing here with Slytherin’s new favorite half-blood son?” Snape asked silkily, ignoring Sirius, and hurling ‘half-blood’ as if it were an epithet, as if he himself wasn’t of such suspect ancestry. “Defacing school property, perhaps? You and Potter seem to have a knack for that after all, though I find these antics in poor taste, even for you, that you’ve defiled one of our classrooms with your abominable homosexual tendencies with Patter the freak.”

Sirius had apparently reached the very edges of the limits to his patience and drew his wand at Snape threateningly. “Get out of my way, Snivellus. You won’t like what I’m capable of when you test me.”

Snape sneered. “What you’re capable of?” he scoffed, eyeing the torn robes, the gashes on Sirius’ skin, the burned ends of his hair. His grin was ghastly as he turned his flat eyes to Harry, whose right arm was bent in an unnatural angle, whose face was barely recognizable from the cuts and the blood that trickled out from every embedded shard of glass and metal. “Seems like you’re capable only of ravaging whatever malformed monstrosity you choose for a partner. Tut tut, Black. You don’t destroy your toys when you’ve had them. Though why I shouldn’t expect such crass behavior from the _Heir_ of your Ancient and Most Noble House is perhaps an honest mistake anyone could make,” he spat this out as if he were truly horrified to find a Pureblood from a noble house gay and engaging in what appeared to him was unnatural sexual relations with another boy who appeared to be hanging onto his life by a thread.

“Fucking take that back!” Sirius yelled, brandishing his wand. “ _Mimblewimble!_ ”

The Tongue-tying curse shot like a blue streak of lightning from Sirius’ wand. Snape, agile and faster without an injured Harry weighing him down, evaded the curse easily, his grin widening maliciously as he shot his own Weakening Hex back at Sirius, who deflected with a well-timed _Protego_. The shield dissipated almost instantly as he blocked the hex though as Sirius was too exhausted to sustain it.

“ _Slugulus Erecto!”_ Snape yelled and the bright green light that erupted from his wand broke through the haze of pain and magical drain and fugue that clouded Harry’s mind.

He was back in the tower again, Malfoy, his face contorted and crying, his wand pointed at a weakened Dumbledore, the Elder Wand thrown from Dumbledore’s hand by the _Expelliarmus_ he’d cast. Bellatrix, the Carrows, Fenrir Greyback, Rowle and Gibbon all watching and egging Malfoy on to kill Dumbledore. And then Snape swooping in, wand pointed, black robes billowing like some bad horror movie rendition of a harbinger of death, casting, green light exploding from his wand, the smell of ozone left by the Killing Curse everywhere… Dumbledore falling and Harry, petrified, unable to move…

Harry raised a crooked finger, broken during his fall after the Apparition and screamed, “ _Crucio!”_

Snape was faster, jumping out of the way of the blast of red Unforgivable that crashed and dissipated along the stone walls of the tower. He raised his wand, black eyes shining with hate, all pointed to Harry and bellowed, “ _Sectumsempra!_ ”

And then Harry was falling, blood spurting everywhere as the bright flash of white of the severing curse slashed his jumpers open, lacerated skin and ruptured organs, a long, deep, jagged cut that streaked from the center of his chest outwards, like little tributaries of a flash of lightning spreading outwards, snaking down his torso and cutting into his left hip, upwards to his broken collarbone, his right shoulder and the side of his neck, up his jaw to the corner of his eye. There was so much blood, so much red. He was on the floor, Sirius shouting his name desperately, the loud patter of feet as Snape fled the scene like the traitorous coward that he was. The memory of a bathroom, a screaming ghost, pipes exploding from poorly-aimed spells, a flash of white and a blond boy lying in the flooded tiled floor, his blood staining the water like insidious poison, and Harry crying for help, crying and failing to save Draco Malfoy…

And then he knew no more.

* * *

When he woke, he was back in King’s Cross, whole and well, unbroken and unbloodied. The featureless white walls and sanitized white floors were jarring. Harry dimly wondered whether he would see the mangled, bloody little baby that was Voldemort’s soul fragment underneath the empty bench. It was the third time he’d been here and standing in this liminal space between life and death, he remembered everything: the details surrounding his birth, his supposed first death at Voldemort’s hands in 1981, the war, his second death in 1998, the final battle, the long, wearing life he led thereafter. The Magical Consumption plague that had taken what remained of his life, the few friends he had, his wife and children, until he was nothing, until there was nothing. As nothing as this featureless white that was King’s Cross.

He wondered why he was here again. He’d been drained magically. He should have died. There didn’t need to be another choice.

He sat at the bench. He was alone here now. There was no train in the platform tracks, waiting to take him away to what Dumbledore had told him would have been his “next great adventure”. 1977 had certainly been one. Harry hadn’t realized how desperate he’d been to find something to anchor him as he floated between worlds and planes of existence, a slave to his own magic. His desire to meet his parents perhaps had been the root. His yearning to know them as he’d never be able to in his life, where they were gone. He remembered the second time he’d been here and how he thought he’d seen Ron and Hermione in the train, how he’d heard Sirius’ laughter and how it had seduced him to board.

He wondered if Sirius was the reason why he was trapped here again, wondered if his desire for this younger, brighter, shinier version of the broken down man he’d known as his godfather was the reason he was tethered to life. All Harry wanted when he’d boarded the train was to die. And then he came upon the world where Sirius was alive, where he wasn’t a vacant-eyed, regret-burdened Azkaban inmate. Where he was beautiful and fiery and everything that Harry ever wanted. Where he was friends with a smiling James, a laughing Remus. Where he joked with Lily and Marlene. Where he was loved, not only by his friends, but even by his estranged family, as evidenced by Narcissa’s and Regulus’ roundabout protectiveness, by Arcturus’ machinations, by the circumspect manner with which he restored his Heir.

Sirius was alive and Harry had fallen in love with him, and he hadn’t wanted to let go.

“You have to though.”

Harry looked up. Draco Malfoy stood in the middle of the platform looking sixteen and emaciated, as he had back when he’d agonized over fixing the Vanishing Cabinet, and despaired over his mission to kill Dumbledore.

Harry was confused. “Why are you here? And what are you talking about?”

Draco shook his head impatiently, coming to join him on the bench. “I don’t have time to explain to you now. I only have a few moments before _he_ realizes I’m gone, that I’ve gone and cocked things up because you’d gotten yourself killed. It’s what he wants. It’s all a game to him.”

“All a game to who?” Harry asked, but Malfoy wasn’t giving answers.

“He just wants to harvest his souls, two, he told me. You and the Dark Lord, and everyone who died from the Consumption. He doesn’t even _want_ to fix the rift in magic. To him, even if you failed now, there’ll be others who’ll take up the fight anyway. It’s just you that he truly wants.”

“Me?”

Draco nodded. “Death.” He heaved a sigh of regret. “I have to apologize, Potter. I don’t think you would be in this unenviable position of being Death’s hunter for the Dark Lord’s soul fragments now if it hadn’t been for me.”

Harry frowned, still not understanding. “I would have hunted Voldemort anyway; I wouldn’t let him fuck up the lives of my parents if I had the chance to stop it.”

“I wish it were that simple. You’re in 1977 because… well, it doesn’t matter why. I caused it. And I don’t know how else to right what I’ve done except to help you now.”

“What do you mean?” Harry asked. “I’ve gotten what I wanted.” He spread his arms and indicated the blank whiteness of the train platform. “I’m dead now… aren’t I? All I’ve to do is wait for the train.”

Draco shook his head. “I can’t let you do that, Potter. I’m sorry.”

Harry stood, suddenly angry. “Why? Why do I have to go back again? Why does it have to be me stopping him? I’m _tired_ , Malfoy! I’m fucking exhausted! I don’t want to do this again.”

Draco looked at him with the saddest grey eyes he’d ever seen. “You don’t mean that. You’re tired, but you _do_ want to do it over again. If only so you could save them. Save _him_. If you don’t go back, Potter, the war erupts as it had again in 1979. Your parents will die. My cousin, that boy who’s besotted with you so much, will go to Azkaban. Nothing will have changed. _Nothing!_ The Dark Lord will hunt you again. And magic will still be torn apart, becoming more and more unstable until it implodes the world as you and I both know it.”

“That really _isn’t_ my problem, you know,” Harry muttered sullenly. “I’m dead.”

Draco shook his head again, his blond hair a pale halo that nearly blended him into the whiteness of King’s Cross. “You’re not. You’re still tied to him. And you’re still tied to Death. It’s why you keep seeing visions of all the people who’ve died. You’re drawing them to you through your tether with Death. And I know you don’t want it, but I need you to stay that way, Potter, until we’ve fixed all the ways in which your magic has completely ripped the world apart.”

“I die and everything is fixed,” Harry intoned. “I’m the lynchpin, aren’t I? The one who hooked all this magic in place with my non-deaths? If I die, the lynchpin is gone and magic can heal. I’m really tired, Malfoy. I don’t know if I can do this again anymore.”

Draco’s face contorted, anger and rage and his immeasurable sense of entitlement flashing steel in his eyes. “Why won’t you do it? People deserve to live a life without Voldemort, Potter! Have you thought about your parents, what it’ll be like if they die? Because that’s what you’re doing! You’re condemning them to die all over again! You’re condemning Sirius to die! I thought you love him!”

“It’ll be their decision to do so if they wanted!” Harry fired back. “I’m not forcing anyone to fight Voldemort! I’ve already done it for two fucking lifetimes! Why do I have to keep giving myself when I’ve already given so much? I want to rest, Malfoy! I want to die! Fucking let me go and call up that goddamn train!”

Draco laughed mirthlessly. “Call up the train? Were you perhaps hoping it worked like the Knight Bus? You aren’t dead yet, Potter, because you’re not meant to be. And I’m not going to call _him_ here to claim you until you finish what you started.”

“I didn’t start anything!” Harry yelled, frustration, confusion and exhaustion all mingling. “What do you want from me? What do all of you want from me?”

Draco grabbed his face, the expression in his eyes venomous as he pressed his hand to pinch Harry’s cheeks, to open his mouth. “A chance to live.”

Harry tried to get away. He would have thrown himself off the platform and onto the train tracks if he could, but Draco was unimaginably strong here and Harry was tired and drained and weak. Draco pinned him flush against his chest, his eyes molten, his breath hot. Harry could feel goosebumps prickle his arms, his hackles raise, and to his embarrassment, his prick harden.

“Say yes, Potter,” Draco hissed cruelly, inexorably. “I need you to live and finish this, so the rest of us have a chance of even existing.”

Harry moaned, helpless and afraid. But so turned on. Did arousal even exist when one was dead? Did him finding Draco Malfoy horribly attractive as he forced him to make a decision mean Harry was indeed the freak that Snape had called him? Did it mean he was being unfaithful to Sirius?

Draco’s eyes danced with fire and light, his lips quirking slyly at whatever it was he’d seen in Harry’s face. “Say yes, Potter, and maybe I’ll even keep Death from taking your godfather.” His smile widened as the fear in Harry’s heart seized and curled into a fist of terror in his throat for Sirius, who was young and happy and beautiful, who Harry had no fucking right to rip away from his youthful existence. “Say yes, and Sirius Black will not cast the Killing Curse at Severus Snape, thereby condemning himself to a life in Azkaban, where he’ll waste away, once more his life nothing but fodder to the breeding dementors.”

Harry shut his eyes against the flash of memory of the Sirius from his timeline, terror struck as hundreds of dementors rushed down upon him, filling him with dread, leaching all the happy memories of his time at Hogwarts, ripping away the joy he’d felt at James’ and Lily’s wedding, the unfettered happiness at holding Harry as a baby for the first time. He hadn’t seen it when it happened, but he remembered the cold dead expression that entered Sirius’ eyes whenever they’d talked about Harry rescuing him from the dementor’s kiss.

It was no choice.

Sirius’ soul versus Harry’s, and Harry’s had already been gambled away by Draco.

“Yes,” he whispered, and pressed his lips against Draco’s cool, dry mouth, felt the touch of wet tongue as Draco drew on the eldritch force that resided in him, born of the bargain he’d made with Death, and breathed a sliver of Death’s own _being_ into Harry’s mouth, suffusing him with a conversely cold pulse of life as he felt himself suctioned out of Death’s threshold.

King’s Cross shattered.

In the swimming morass of darkness and dimensions of endless fiery pain, Harry could hear Sirius sobbing his name. He wanted to open his eyes, wanted to move and to touch and and to wipe his tears away and tell him he was here, he was alive, he’d protect him from Death and dementors and Azkaban and Snape and everything that was Voldemort that hounded their heels.

He heard another voice besides Sirius’ wailing cries, chanting the healing spell, _Vulnera sanentur, vulnera sanentur…_

It sounded like Malfoy, the Malfoy he knew from 2017, aging and going grey and consumed with grief over the death of his wife and child. He no longer remembered, then, as the spell pulsated through his core, restarting his heart. The bleeding stopped, the pain subsided. The rips in his skin and flesh knitted back, whole, but terribly, irrevocably scarred. The scar that was the mark of Death.

Whatever he may have recalled as he stood in King’s Cross, locked in Draco Malfoy’s embrace was gone, all of it, another life in a timeline that had completely fallen apart from the force of his magic ripping holes through the fabrics of existence.

The year was 1977, and Harry Potter was alive.

His eyes snapped open and then he saw: the destroyed remnants of the Astronomy Tower, the blast marks of spells on unfeeling grey stone. The soot and blood and tears on Sirius’ face.

He reached out a hand, weak with blood loss and broken bone and magical drain, and caught a tear as it slipped off the cliff of Sirius’ sharp cheekbone.

“I’m here,” he tried to say but no sound would leave his throat. “I’m here and I’m alive.”

Sirius let out a shuddering sob, his grey eyes wide and disbelieving, and then he was smiling through his tears. “Hush, Harry, you’re alive. You’re back and you need to rest.”

And so he rested, cocooned himself in warm dreams of pale arms and soft lips, black hair and stormy grey eyes, and Sirius whispering that he loved him. Harry slept the sleep of the exhausted, the healing sleep of recovery. Yes, Malfoy had coerced him back to life, but he didn’t think it was such a huge hardship if he was going to wake up to the glimmer of relief in those eyes, the hint of worship in that smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> goddammit I don't know why I keep doing this to myself, but writing this chapter made a whole host of how things are planned for Harry change all over again! Back to the drawing board!
> 
> Also, yeah, this is basically it for Snape. He Sectumsempra'd Harry like Draco and idk gets suspended. Who even knows. Harry doesn't give a shit about him. Someone'll gossip about him soon so we find out lol


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is monstrously huge and ties up a lot of the tiny details Sirius observed in the Cave, as well as some of the offhand information I snuck in about the Chamber of Secrets. It's born of my indignation that James Potter _deserved_ more than just dying on the staircase of his family home, alone, friendless, and wandless, utterly defenseless against the Killing Curse leveled on him, all because he wanted to buy his wife and child time to get away. His sacrifice hadn't even been afforded any importance in the books, and I'm here to shove his importance down your throats.

There were few things that James Potter loved more than life itself. Lily was definitely one of them. He’d crushed hard on the muggleborn witch from the time he first laid eyes on her in the Hogwarts Express, when they were all eleven and still flush with the excitement of going off to Hogwarts. He hadn’t said much of this crush in those early days, because girls, according to his new friends, Sirius, Remus and Peter, were gross: they were annoying and bossy and likely had things called “cooties”, which James had no earthly idea what it meant, and which Remus laughingly teased Sirius that he probably had because Sirius had worn his hair long from the time they were children.

The thing was, James was always the most mature among his friends. Oh, people constantly passed judgment over the fact that he and Sirius were immature twits who spent more time slacking off and pranking their classmates. McGonagall, for one, was convinced that Remus was the emotionally mature one among the Marauders, going so far as give him the Gryffindor Prefect badge in fifth year, one of the few moments of disappointment in James’ young life when he’d told his parents that he was too much of a troublemaker at school to ever be made Prefect. James didn’t like disappointing his parents, but he hadn’t really wanted to be one anyway—pranking with Sirius was more fun—and Remus had been absolutely _floored_ when he got the badge, and James was never one to take successes and glory away from his friends. There was plenty of that to go around and he quite enjoyed the notoriety that he and Sirius wielded in school without the constraints of a Prefect badge.

The thing that most of these people who passed judgment on him didn’t understand was that the source of this immaturity and mischief-making wasn’t out of his own desire to flub impending adulthood, but in solidarity with the one other person he loved more than life itself. Sirius was his brother in all but blood, and, though he loved him in a very different manner than he loved Lily, Sirius was a defining figure in James Potter’s life, and the two of them fed off each other’s energy and enthusiasm for constantly being up to no good, so much so that they’d even influenced the generally more quiet and shy Remus (“taught him to grow a backbone, more like,” Sirius had once told him in third year when Remus finally allowed his own star in Gryffindor to shine with his talent with Defense of the Dark Arts, and that innate ability to relate and study magical creatures as a direct result of his lycanthropy), and the neurotic, sycophantic Peter, into partaking in their antics.

At the junction of his life at that moment, if one were to force James Potter to choose between the two loves of his life, he would probably choose Lily, but only insofar as that he was about to go on his first ever date with her, finally, after years and years of trying to woo her into even taking the smallest notice of him. (Granted, pranking her then annoying, greasy creep of a best friend hadn’t really been the best declaration of his affections towards her, but there was only so much Dark Arts tricks and hexes one could take before one retaliated, and James Potter exacted revenge in the grandest, loudest, most ostentatious style, just like he did his flying and practically everything else, because, hey, he was _the_ James Potter, Heir to the Potter potions empire, and to an ancient and noble house that needed no random capitalization to seem important; Potters were just that well-known in the wider Wizarding World, given that hospitals the world over administered Skele-gro and Pepper Up Potions as part of regular medical procedure.)

In any event, it would have been a choice Sirius would understand, given that his brother had whinged long and hard about how James did not possess the ability to shut the ever living fuck up about Lily, _and could you really put a sock in it, Prongs? I see Evans everyday and I don’t need a rundown of her activities when I see her_ right there _too._

James, like any self-respecting Pureblood, had no Muggle means of transportation, and since the Evanses didn’t have a Floo connected hearth, he relied on dear old mum and dad to shuttle him to Lily’s front yard. It was Dad’s time to take him out today, Mum busy with overseeing the house elves, especially as his grandfather was moving from the estate in Kent to their country manor in Somerset in preparation for James’ majority.

Dad, of course, was a busy man and was prompt with the Side-Along Apparition to Cokeworth. They appeared in a quiet neighborhood of row houses with neat flower-beds, the snow shoveled out by hand by what Lily had called the hard-working blue collar class of England. Lily’s father was a nurse, which after some of their conversations James had been able to translate as a muggle equivalent of a mediwizard, and her mother was a primary school teacher. They were, by no means, well-to-do, but the house whose backyard they’d appeared in looked clean, orderly and didn’t appear to be in a bad neighborhood at all.

“Well, son, I’d wish you luck with your new lady love, but I understand there isn’t an abundant enough amount of Felix Felicis in the world to help you in that department,” Fleamont Potter said with a wry grin.

James groaned. He maybe needed to stop letting his dad spend so much time interrogating Remus and Peter of how James was doing with wooing his desired girl. “Dad, I _told_ you Remus is blowing hot air up your arse with that; Lily absolutely likes me now. See, we’re going on a _date_!”

Fleamont would have laughed as they rounded the house to knock on the front door but the door flew open and Lily, her red hair still in rollers, emerged, dressed in the strange denim trousers that muggles seemed to be so fond of (“They’re practical, durable clothes!” Remus reasoned when Sirius and James had once asked him why he risked the chafing in his legs for such an odd choice of clothing), and a red and black plaid shirt that hugged her curves in all the right ways. James himself had dressed as muggle as he dared in black trousers and a white button-down (“You look like a waiter in some fancy shit restaurant!” Remus had guffawed when James tried to put on a waistcoat and bow tie) though his father was still in very practical black robes, since he really only would be there to drop off his son.

“James!” Lily cried, a hint of hysteria in her voice before she spotted Fleamont. “Uh, oh, hi, Mr Potter!” She tried to brush her hand down one of the tails of her plaid shirt, which had tugged out of the waistband of her denim trousers when she’d thrown the door wide open. “I’m Lily, I go to school with your son.”

Fleamont Potter beamed as he bowed in the courtly old-fashioned manner that befitted Pureblood gentlemen, and that seriously embarrassed James who was really trying to for casual, which according to Remus, was the way Muggles preferred social interaction. “Good afternoon, Ms Evans.”

“Alright, dad, it’s time for you to go home,” James groaned at the mischievous expression in his father’s face.

“Wait, no!” Lily cried and both James and his father turned to stare as she flushed brightly. “Er, sorry, Mr Potter. I think we might be needing your help for a little while longer. Would you like to come in?”

The Evans home, like it was outside, was clean and neat inside, if a bit cramped. The hallway they entered led to a small living room with old, mismatched but serviceable couch, chairs and a low table. There was a strange large box paned on the front with an opaque sort of glassthat the chairs were arranged around. It had three knobs and two long, thin metal protruding at the top. James stared in fascination, recalling something similar in the Lupin household when he’d visited the previous summer. Remus had called it a vellytision. Sirius and Peter had called it a poor man’s Wizard photograph.

Here, the vellytision was turned on, showing moving black and white images of people and emitting a cacophonous jumble of sound that coincided to when the people inside the box were talking interspersed with what James could only describe as static. A dark-haired girl about a few years older than himself and Lily sat on the couch, cup of tea with a bag ( _poor_ , his inner Pureblood snob asserted snootily but he hushed that thought up quickly because it was rude to judge) steeping, in hand. The girl had a long bony face that bore just enough resemblance to Lily that James surmised this was her sister.

“Tuney, this is James,” Lily said distractedly. “We go to school together. And this is his dad, Mr Potter.”

Petunia Evans stood, her nose wrinkling in distaste as James extended a hand, and Fleamont bowed that same courtly bow to greet a young lady. “They’re one of those funny people, aren’t they? Like that friend of yours… Snape.”

James wanted to be affronted. “I’m sorry, I’m nothing like Snivellus at all.”

“James!” Lily cried at the same time his father tutted disapprovingly.

James grinned that charming Potter smile that never failed to disarm the girls in Gryffindor tower. “Did I say something that wasn’t true?”

Petunia made a face that looked as if she’d swallowed a lemon, but she grudgingly took James’ hand, eyeing him speculatively. “You look nothing like that greasy little prat.”

James laughed. “I’d hope so; I do shower and change my clothes as hygiene calls for it.”

“Is this about that… that bird that showed up here?” Petunia demanded, quickly extracting her hand.

“Oh!” Lily cried, wringing her hands as if she didn’t actually remember why she’d invited them in. “Yes, I’m sorry Mr Potter, James. Dad is asleep right now, he’s had a long night shift, or I’d introduce you. But yes, there was an owl here not five minutes ago. James, it looked like Sirius’ owl, or maybe not _his_ but something from his family.” She dug into her jeans pocket for a scrap of parchment. “It didn’t wait and you were already at the door. I only really had time to take this before it took off.”

“It’s barbaric and stole food from the dinner table,” Petunia sniffed.

James frowned as he took the parchment. Sirius didn’t have an owl, not since first year, when his parents took away Astra, his eagle owl whom Sirius loved and doted on, after he was sorted in Gryffindor. Astra had then been given to Regulus, though Sirius still sneaked visits and messages through the stately, loyal bird. The scrap of parchment appeared ripped from something Sirius had evidently stolen from Professor Sinistra, their Astronomy teacher, which was strange, since neither he nor Sirius took Astronomy since it stopped being a required subject in third year. What _had_ Sirius been doing at Hogwarts to steal from the professor’s own pad when he had plenty in the dorms?

The note was short, dotted with stray drops of a dark red ink and just this side of water-stained, and in shaky handwriting James wouldn’t have recognized if he didn’t know his best friend’s handwriting so well.

_Prongs, I need you._

There was no signature, though it didn’t need one. Only Sirius, Remus and Peter called him by his animagus name because they were the only ones who knew, and James had just seen Remus and Peter the day before, when they’d both Flooed home to celebrate the New Year with their respective families. Sirius was the only one whom James hadn’t seen in the past two weeks and he wondered what it was his best friend had got up to in the time they’d spent apart. Surely Harry, who was a lot more level-headed, was keeping him out of trouble?

“Who is it from?” Lily asked anxiously. “I thought it might be important, the parchment seemed covered in blood!”

James’ eyes widened as saw what he thought at first was dried red ink in a new light. “It’s Sirius. I think he may be in trouble.”

“Oh my—is he hurt?”

Fleamont held his hand out to his son and James wordlessly passed the note to his father, who sniffed at it delicately. “It’s definitely blood. Jamie—“ It had to be a mark of the sudden spike in James’ anxiety over the safety and well-being of his best friend that he ignored the abominable nickname his parents loved to call him “—did Sirius go home for the Christmas hols? I know you said he was staying in school with a new classmate of yours—“

“Harry!” Lily gasped, thinking quickly. “Do you think Harry would hurt him? Or get him in trouble? But he just seems so level-headed and… well, nice… I didn’t think—“

James shook his head firmly. No, Harry was his _son_ from the future, and he knew he acted a bit odd at times, seeing as how he’d lived through a war and was now stuck in another timeline, but he was a good person, and he would never hurt Sirius. James had to believe that no future child of his and Lily would hurt the one other person James loved the most. And Harry seemed like he did love Sirius just as much, maybe even _more_ than James did. If Sirius was hurt, then there’s a very good likelihood that Harry was in far worse condition. James didn’t think Harry would just allow Sirius, who was still really a boy despite having entered his majority ahead of the other Marauders, to get hurt without taking on some, if not all of the danger, on his own. He had to wonder what the two had been up to that they’d needed to stay in the castle.

“Harry wouldn’t do anything like that,” he told Lily firmly, and turned to his father. “Dad, Harry’s that classmate I told you about before, the one who was attacked by one of our professors when he tried to save Sirius’ cousin from a monster hidden deep in the school.”

Fleamont’s mouth thinned to a straight, consterned line as a vein on his broad forehead ticked and throbbed for a moment. “I’ve told Dumbledore countless times that there are dangerous objects stored in Hogwarts. Far too dangerous to be allowed to stay unchecked. You remember that story your mother told you about once, when that awful boy had been attacking her housemates with snakes that their House revered as its symbol?”

James’ eyes widened. “I remember. Mum said his name was Mofro… Moren… Marto?”

“Morfin,” Fleamont supplied. “Morfin Gaunt. He’d been in second year when his father pulled him out of the school for fear of dirtying their blood by associating with non-Pureblood wizards. Euphemia had been the Head Girl during his time. She’d mentioned Morfin would rattle on at length about setting a snake far larger than the ones he enjoyed leaving in his roommates’ beds whenever a half-blood sorted into Slytherin.”

“The Chamber guardian!” James realized. “He was talking about the monster that guarded the Chamber of Secrets! Harry and Narcissa had nearly been trapped there byProfessor Croaker last month!”

Lily gasped, fear filling her bright green eyes. “Do you think the Chamber was opened again?”

James and Fleamont exchanged dark looks filled with trepidation. James knew far more about the Chamber of Secrets than most wizard-educated children, his mother having gone to Hogwarts during the time that the last of the Gaunts had been there, and the Gaunts, being descendants of Salazar Slytherin himself, had reveled in that association and never failed to let their schoolmates know. James’ mother, Euphemia, had been uniquely positioned in that she’d been Prefect and then Head Girl during that time and had heard first hand how much the Gaunt children bragged about their ancestry and their ancestral rights as descendants of one of the school founders. Fleamont had taught at Hogwarts some before taking on the Potter legacy as Henry Potter’s Heir. He’d been the Runes teacher, and had helped Slughorn a fair bit in Potions, specifically during the time the Chamber of Secrets was last opened. This had been the time before his father had even invented Sleekeazy.

James clutched the note tightly in his hand, fear for his best friend, and the son he’d have in the far off future quickly changing his priorities in the moment of truth. “Lily, I’m terribly sorry to do this, but would you mind terribly if—“

“I’m going back to school with you,” Lily said firmly in a voice that would brook no argument. “Just give me a minute to get these stupid rollers off and tell Dad that something’s come up at school.” She turned to her sister. “Tuney, would you mind terribly to phone mum at work?”

Petunia crossed her arms before her chest belligerently. “Tell her yourself, Lily. I want no part of this funny business that’s just liable to get you in all sorts of trouble.”

Lily sighed but turned back to James and Fleamont with a consternated stare. “I’m sorry, Mum and Dad have been very worried since Mr Bones—“

Fleamont nodded, his aged features kind, understanding. “Of course, Ms Evans. If you would kindly let your father know? I shall speak to him for you, and your mother if so needed.”

Lily dashed off to wake her father, but it seemed the man in question was already up and emerging from one of the three closed doors down a cramped but clean hallway that James assumed led to the bedrooms.

Mr Evans was a skinny man of average height, with dark auburn hair that was greying at the temples. He wore had a tired, sleepless air about him that spoke of working long night shifts at the local hospital, but he smiled brightly in his dusty blue dressing gown as he spotted James and Fleamont in his family sitting room.

“Lily, is this your young man that you were about to go on a date with?” His voice, though tinged with exhaustion and lack of sleep, was nonetheless bright and teasing.

Lily grinned a bit sheepishly. “Dad, this is James. We’re in Gryffindor together. And this is his father, Mr Potter. He’s here to drop James off, but it seems we might have to be going back to school.”

Mr Evans shook both James’ and Fleamont’s hands with a firm, if bony, handshake. “School? I thought you were taking him to the cinema.”

“Something’s come up with my best—er, brother, sir,” James supplied helpfully, respectfully to who he was convinced would be his future father-in-law. “He’s staying at school this hols for some extra-curricular work.”

Mr Evans had that same mischievous glint in his green eyes that James’ father had been sporting until Lily passed them Sirius’ note. “This isn’t one of those troublemaking boys who’s always driving you up the wall, is it, Lils?"

“He is, a bit,” Lily laughed. “James and Sirius both.”

James held up his hands. “I promise I’m nothing like Lily’s _other_ friend,” he said meaningfully which earned him a stern glance from Lily and a tired laugh from Mr Evans.

“You mean the Snape boy, I think. I hope not. That boy’s been a world of trouble off at Spinner’s End, working mischievous magic on the neighbors when his mother wasn’t looking. That was before any of you even started school, mind. Eileen’s driven up the wall every time Severus gets between her fights with Tobias. Not a good place to grow up in, but none of the other boys in his neighborhood had ever been so malicious as that child. I suppose none of them had fathers who was drunk half as much as Tobias is. Gets into trouble with the local authorities from time to time, the Snapes do.”

Lily was a bit abashed that her father knew so much of what was going on in their neighborhood. “Dad likes to keep posted, especially since he knows there’s other magical folk here in our corner in Cokeworth, and especially since… well, since Mr Bones’ family during the summer.”

Fleamont nodded gravely, and James felt miserable over it. Edgar Bones’ wife was his mother’s first cousin once removed, and that made their children James’ first cousins. Euphemia Potter nee Greengrass had been one of the first Amelia Bones had called on when Mr Bones and his family were first discovered.

Mr Evans sighed. “Nasty business going on in your world these days, Mr Potter. I’d be more than glad if my Lily was kept safe.”

James opened his mouth but his father beat him to it. “Of course, Mr Evans. As a parent, and with only one child myself, I would expect nothing less of the people who are supposed to nurture and care for our magical children.” He straightened his robes when Lily declared herself ready, curlers off her hair, and a peacoat and her Gryffindor scarf in hand. “Don’t worry, my good man. I protect my son to the edges of the world if needed, and I’d do nothing less for your daughter. If there is trouble in the school, you can be sure I’ll have words with the Headmaster about improvements. I _am_ still on the Board of Governors, and I assure you that my compatriots there desire nothing but the best education and well-being of our children.”

Mr Evans shook Fleamont’s hand again, firmly, and to James’ delight, reached up and affectionately ruffled his hair, the same action he did to his daughter. “You kids take care, and follow Mr Potter’s instruction to the letter. I want no trouble with either of you as you go back to an empty school. I’ll handle your mother, Lils.”

“It won’t be empty, dad,” Lily groused good-naturedly, but she kissed her father goodbye, and waved at her sister. “Bye dad, bye Tuney!”

“I’ll bring her back sundown, sir!” James called to Mr Evans as his father put an arm around him and Lily and side-along Apparated the both of them to the gates of Hogwarts.

Sirius was nowhere to be found in Gryffindor tower, but James was quick to locate him and Harry on the map, which he took from his trunk before leading his father and Lily out to the hospital wing. The trek did nothing for his nerves as his mind conjured all sorts of awful situations that could have happened to his friends to land them in the hospital wing. James was certain even Sirius’ wildest prank stunts wouldn’t warrant them getting so injured that they had to stay in the hospital wing, and he was certain Harry wouldn’t do anything to hurt either of them either. The boy had been fairly beaten up about himself when he’d told about how the diadem had attacked Sirius and nearly killed him, especially when Madam Pomfrey hadn’t been able to wake him at all initially.

“Prongs!” Sirius cried, springing out of bed as soon as the three of them entered. “Lily! Er… did I disturb your date?”

“Mr Black, if you would keep the noise level down!” Madam Pomfrey’s stern tones drifted from behind a privacy screen that sectioned off the far side of the sickroom. From the shadows behind the screen, James could tell there were at least two other people, and an occupied hospital bed, behind the screen with her.

“Poppy, let me take the kids out of your hair in that case, if Sirius is well enough to be discharged,” Fleamont said smoothly to a muttered, absent reply from Madam Pomfrey.

Sirius’ eyes widened when Fleamont Potter came into view and he stared between him, James and Lily for a moment before promptly bursting into tears.

It took an extra strength Calming Draught and a walk to an anteroom that Madam Pomfrey used as an office to get Sirius coherent enough to even talk about what had happened to him and Harry while the rest of the school was on holiday.

His hands shook as he sank into one of Madam Pomfrey’s shabby-chic yet comfortable chairs in her office, and he moved gingerly, as if his entire body hurt from any sort of motion, which about summed up Sirius’ condition well enough if the healing cuts on his face and arms were any indication. James was fairly certain there were more healed injuries Sirius was hiding beneath the grey hospital gown and pajamas. It wasn’t the scabbed over cuts that would heal without a mark thanks to magic, though, that worried him. Sirius’ eyes were dark and shadowed, in nearly that same manner that Harry’s perpetually were, as if he’d witnessed something harrowing and that whatever it was he’d seen had seared indelibly into his soul.

“Sirius, are you quite alright, son?” Fleamont asked solicitously as Lily busied herself with serving the tea the house elves left for them as soon as they entered Pomfrey’s office, and James helped to make his best friend as comfortable as he could, plying Sirius with a blanket he’d stolen from a cupboard behind the door.

Sirius looked uncertainly at James’ father, then at Lily, as if calculating how much of what he knew, not just of what had obviously happened during the holidays, but of everything he and James and Remus had been privy to about Harry since they’d all become friends. Then, he appeared to square his shoulders, as if deciding that whatever Harry’s opinion of what he had to say, he’d take it on when it happened.

“I—James told you about… about my boyfriend, right, Mr Potter?” Sirius asked uncertainly.

Fleamont smiled kindly at Sirius and sipped his tea, nodding thanks to Lily who settled next to James. James took her hand in his and she bestowed him a tiny, but radiant smile that made his heart soar despite his growing worry over his best friend.

“Yes, Jamie’s told me that you were seeing a young man at school, and as I understand, you’ve introduced him to your family.”

Sirius bit his lip. That sounded a bit generous considering Sirius and Harry had crashed Andromeda’s funeral and then been cornered by Sirius’ grandfather, Lord Black, about Narcissa’s role in Andromeda and Croaker’s deaths.

“I didn’t even want any of them to meet him, but… I would’ve brought him to you and Mrs Potter first!” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter anyway. Grandfather managed to get Harry off the hook for what Croaker did, attacking Dromeda and Cissa like that.”

Fleamont nodded, his expression grave, the knot between his salt-and-pepper eyebrows deepening. “I’m deeply troubled that Dumbledore has allowed a student to be killed within the school, _again_ if I might add, and two others to get hurt by one of his teachers. Though I would not have imagined Saul Croaker to have been the one inflicting such terror on you kids. He had always had a good head on his shoulders.”

“Again?” Lily echoed.

“Dad was a teacher here at Hogwarts during the time the Chamber was last opened,” James explained. “He taught Ancient Runes before Professor Babbling took over in ’61. The Chamber was opened in ’44, and there’d been a muggleborn girl who’d been killed. Hagrid had been expelled on suspicion of being the one who opened the Chamber.”

“Hagrid!” Lily cried, horrified. “But he wouldn’t hurt a fly!”

Fleamont looked as if he’d shared the same sentiment all those years ago and had been brushed off. “Headmaster Dippet had his hands tied by the Aurors and the Board of Governors at the time. No one had any idea what had happened, and a boy from Slytherin reported that his half-giant friend was keeping dangerous creatures in an abandoned classroom they’d been using for mischief-making. Saul would have known about this, though. I wonder…”

Sirius brushed all of the conjecture aside. “Croaker knew about it, alright. He knew that boy, Tom Riddle, had been the one to open the Chamber, and not Hagrid. He tried to track him down, Riddle, and found he could through his…” He hesitated before apparently deciding that he’d be better off letting James’ father know the truth. “It was a diary he left behind. He’d bewitched for it to contain a portion of his soul, that would then feed off and control whoever wrote into the diary.”

Fleamont’s expression was stormy to put it lightly. “And Dumbledore has allowed the diary of this… Dark wizard… to just be laying about in the school? What’s your Headmaster thinking these days, I have to wonder, keeping the knowledge of the Chamber from the students, and doing nothing to flush out whatever horrors that Chamber contains the minute he took over from Dippet.”

“I don’t think Dumbledore even knew about the diary,” Sirius muttered. “Harry told me Croaker said he obtained it from Malfoy’s father.”

“Ah but I doubt Abraxas would have let something quite so dangerous loose in a school where his heir lives. Then I’m thinking Saul must have brought it here on his own, and this is what’s wrought all this trauma on you?”

Sirius shook his head, his hair falling in lank waves all over his face. He looked so beaten down and anxious and not at all like the self-confident, brash Pureblood that James knew as his best friend, that he had to wonder exactly what it was that could have so drastically changed him in so short span of time.

“Harry’s already closed the Chamber, and destroyed the diary, Mr Potter.”

Fleamont frowned and James thought if his father continued to frown even further, the wrinkle between his eyebrows would be permanently etched deep and worried, into his aging face. “If this young man of yours closed the Chamber, then he must be related to the Gaunts. I understand from Euphemia that the Gaunts were certain none but they could enter or exit the Chamber.”

Sirius shrugged. “I—I think he might be… _you_ might be.”

James blinked. “What?”

“Harry’s a Parselmouth, James. And since he’s your… er…”

James understood now what Sirius had been steeling himself for, but even then, he couldn’t seem to be able to betray Harry’s confidence. But if Harry and Sirius were in trouble, James knew it was his job to protect them both. Harry was his son, and Sirius was his best friend. And there was no way he was going to be able to without telling his father. He was just sixteen! Sirius and Harry were really no older. They needed an adult to handle this for them. Sirius and Harry had been hurt, often enough and deeply enough, that this… _thing_ … about Voldemort, about Tom Riddle… needed to be off their hands and in the hands of someone who would actually do something about it. Not like Dumbledore had been doing something about Voldemort, by organizing some secret resistance group against him, but someone with the right political power, and sway and might in Wizarding Britain to galvanize the Ministry into action.

Arcturus was just the beginning. And his only concern really was the protection of the Black name. James had once told Harry that he would move heaven and earth and bring to bear the full force of the power wielded by the Potters in Britain to help his son escape an Azkaban sentence. Well, he would do the same to get this awful burden off Harry’s shoulders as well. Especially now as it weighed just as heavily on Sirius.

“Dad, what Sirius isn’t telling you is that Harry’s related to us.”

Fleamont appeared floored by this information. The Potters, like all old Pureblood families, kept track of all their relatives. Fleamont and Henry Potter kept contact with cousins who lived as far away as the United States. James even wrote cousins of his who lived in China, as the British envoy to the equivalent of the Ministry of Magic there.

“Well, he’s certainly named after my father’s nickname, but—“

James shook his head. “You wouldn’t know of him, dad, because Harry James Potter wouldn’t be born until July of 1980. Two years from now.” He heaved a breath. “To me, and to a muggleborn witch called Lily Evans.”

Lily gasped, her eyes widening to almost comical proportions as she pulled her hand out of James’ lax grip. “We got married? Is that why you’ve been so—“

James shrugged helplessly. “I mean, I didn’t know about it until Harry showed up this year! You know I’ve been interested in you since we were in first year!”

“Oh, we are so talking about this in greater detail later, James F Potter,” Lily said sternly before she and Fleamont gestured for him to continue.

“Anyway, yeah, Harry’s from the future.” He puzzled the statement over for a moment. “Or, I suppose a version of the future, since he’s told us things have changed quite a bit since he arrived and the future he came from may no longer be a certainty, much less true.”

Sirius took over telling the story, since he actually knew it far better than James could ever wrap his head around. Sirius, after all, had seen Harry’s timeline as it had happened, in the vision the diadem gave him. “Yes, Harry’s… I suppose you could say he’s not really seventeen in the future he came from. It was 2017 before he used the Time Turner to… die, I guess would be the only way to put it… but ended up here instead. He’s been steadily losing all of his memories since then. I don’t think he even remembered that he’d gotten married to one of the Weasley children before… well, before what happened yesterday, I suppose.”

Fleamont’s eyes goggled behind his round glasses that James thought made him look even more like Harry than even James did. “Weasley? Arthur and Molly only have sons. How would he have—“

“They had a daughter in 1981,” Sirius answered absently. “I’m not going into the whole of his life because it’s not very… it isn’t very happy for any of you. Even for me. Even for him. We all died and left him alone before he was even seventeen. And… and the headmaster’s been grooming him as a child soldier to fight against Voldemort, because of some prophecy some phony witch relayed to him right after Lily and Prongs supposedly got married. Harry basically grew up to be some sort of secret weapon to fight against Voldemort. And that’s what he did, until he died in 1998.”

Lily was so horrified that she unconsciously grabbed James’ hand again, for emotional support. This was supposedly her _son_ Sirius was talking about. She hadn’t even reacted as strongly when Sirius mentioned that all of them, her included, had died, but she couldn’t fathom a future in which her son would die at the age of seventeen, fighting against some Dark Lord that all of them wanted to believe they could root out and incarcerate before things got out of hand _at this time_. James was more concentrated on the fact that their school headmaster had taken an orphan boy and had basically groomed him for slaughter at a later point in his life. Was that why in Harry’s timeline, he’d been sent to live with Lily’s very unpleasant sister and said sister’s supremely disagreeable family in the future?

“If he…” Lily had to swallow to get around the watery tremor in her voice. She sounded so small that James unconsciously tightened his fingers reassuringly around her smaller, suddenly cold hand, “If he died in 1998, how did he live on to 2017?”

Sirius raised his head. His grey eyes had a distant, almost dreamlike feel to them as he stared off to the bare cream walls of Madam Pomfrey’s office. “When Harry was… hurt… yesterday, this man I’d kept seeing show up around him appeared. I—I don’t think you’d’ve seen him, Prongs, but he was in the bathroom that day, when we saw Dromeda and Croaker. He’d shown up as a boy then, but I know they’re the same person. I can _feel_ they’re the same person… I think he’s Malfoy’s child with Cissa, in the future… I don’t know. But he shows up around Harry all the time. I can feel when he’s around, and I really hate him, but… yesterday, Harry and I—oh, I shouldn’t even be telling you this, Mr Potter! We left the school because Harry thinks he needs to finish this quest against You-Know-Who, gather all the artifacts that host his soul fragments and destroy them, so he could fight him here now, in our timeline, so all of us wouldn’t die in the future like I’d seen in his.

“Harry was grievously injured when we went on that hunt.” He looked up sharply at all of them. “And before you think otherwise, no, he didn’t force me to go with him. I convinced him to take me with him, and just as well or he would’ve died in that cave with all the Inferi—“

James could feel his throat choke with horror. Beside him, tears stream down Lily’s face. His father looked like he was going to go greyer than any man had to a right to be even at his age.

“We came back to school and he was just so hurt and injured and I didn’t know what to do and Snivellus attacked us—“

“Severus attacked you? While Harry was hurt?” Lily cried, indignation that her former friend would attack an injured person who was her son from the future and her friend now coloring her tone darkly.

A tear tracked down Sirius’ pale face, catching on a scab, before he wiped it away angrily. “Snivellus nearly killed him! He sliced him open and there was just so much blood…! I thought he was going to die, but then that man appeared, and he started chanting a healing spell. I don’t know what it was, but it made the worst of the cuts close. He said he couldn’t heal the rest of Harry’s wounds, but that McG and Pomfrey and Dumbledore would be on the way since Harry tore through the wards when we Apparated back into school.”

He stopped talking for a moment, too choked with his tears and fear over Harry’s safety, before he reached into a pocket on his hospital gown and procured a small golden trinket and laid it out on Pomfrey’s table. It was a locket with an ornate S carved in the form of a snake.

“We took this from the cave with the Inferi. It’s one of You-Know-Who’s soul artifacts. Harry calls them Horcruxes. He knows Voldemort’s got them hidden all around the country. There was one here at school. You know the one, Prongs.”

James nodded. “The diadem. I thought you said you destroyed that.”

“I did, but there’s more like it. This locket’s one of them, and it’s what we’d gone to retrieve… why Harry couldn’t go with you for the holidays. He desperately wants to know you, Mr Potter. He’d never known any of his grandparents, hadn’t even seen photos or portraits of you in his timeline.” He let out a sob. “That blond man, Draco, Harry calls him, told me to take this before Dumbledore found us. He said it needs to be destroyed, but Harry has the basilisk fang we used to destroy the diadem and the diary, and I don’t know what to do now!”

James had to let go of Lily’s hand as he stood and wrapped his arms around his oldest and best friend and let him cry on his shoulder. Sirius had been through something infinitely traumatic, and he still didn’t know whether his boyfriend would make it through his injuries, if that privacy screen and the urgent murmurs behind it was to be an indication that Pomfrey was conferring either with St Mungo’s experts or any of the other teachers over Harry’s condition, and James would be damned if he let his best friend go through all of this terror and fear alone.

“I didn’t know what else to do when I woke, so I sent that owl when Pomfrey thought I was asleep and left us alone to confer with Dumbledore,” Sirius sobbed. “I’m sorry, James, I didn’t know you and Lily would be on a date.”

Lily stood up too and wrapped her shorter, slimmer arms around the two of them. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for, Sirius. Your owl made it to James about the same time he arrived at my house. I’m just glad we’re both here to help you now.”

James’ father was still sitting, his face drawn in deep thought as he stared at the innocuous looking locket on their school matron’s table. “James’ son from the future is a Parselmouth… Sirius, lad, did your young man… did my grandson tell you who this Tom Riddle is? He’s You-Know-Who, I gather, but did he tell you who he was?”

Sirius raised his tear-stained face to Fleamont, his grey eyes had a look of ancient pain in them. “Yeah. He said he’s the illegitimate son of some Muggle and a woman called Merope Gaunt. He said the Gaunts were descended from Salazar Slytherin himself.”

Fleamont nodded, his lips thinning again in that consternated expression that James knew meant trouble for them all. “What he probably didn’t know was how he’s related to them. How _we’re_ related to them. The Gaunts are distant cousins of ours, James, through a common ancestor: Cadmus Peverell is the older brother of your great great ancestor, Ignotus Peverell. The Parseltongue gift passed through the Peverell bloodline, into the Gaunts. But you know these Dark gifts also pass through the same bloodlines that went into the Potters.” He shook his head as he stood, his gloved hand reaching for the locket. “You said that Harry used a basilisk fang to destroy the other artifacts that You-Know-Who crafted to store pieces of his soul. Then I assume you mean this basilisk to be the monster that guards the Chamber of Secrets?”

Sirius nodded, his face so pale, James thought he was going to pass out. “Are you—do you—“

Fleamont Potter’s face was dark and stormy, an expression James had never seen in his kindly, doting, fun-loving father, ever in his life. “Your young man is a very learned and intelligent boy, Sirius. I’m not surprised given that he’s my son and this bright young lady’s child from the future. But he evidently did not know his heritage well enough to know that not only the Gaunts and You-Know-Who had the Dark gift that is the ability to speak to the snakes that guard the Chamber. Parseltongue is a rare heritage in the Potter line, overpowered as it is by other gifts that Magic has bestowed upon us to help us keep to the light. It’s skipped most generations, but there’s one other person, besides your Harry Potter, and You-Know-Who, that is alive now to have the ability to open the Chamber and retrieve enough of the basilisk venom to destroy this locket. In fact, there would be no need of it, as this person once cultivated baby basilisks to experiment with their venom as poisons for eradicating the more stubborn pests, such as boggarts and house ghouls.”

James blinked and tried to wrack his memory of who else he knew that worked with poisons and potions as well as his father did. None of their extended family had stayed within Britain to work in the Potter’s potions empire, preferring to strike out in the continent, or in the New World, to build their own fortunes with their own magic.

“Who, dad?”

Fleamont sighed tiredly. “He once told me never to mention this to you, as he was ashamed of having worked so extensively in deriving and making poison from substances as utterly destructive as basilisk venom, but you know him very well, son. He’s your grandfather. Henry Antoich Potter is a Parselmouth too, like his cousin, your great great uncle, Corvinus Gaunt, and your ancestors, Antioch, Cadmus, and Ignotus. The Peverell brothers of ancient and fabled history. It seems my father has to go back to his poison-making days one last time, if we’re to help ourselves and the future your son has seen, not to let it come to pass.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notice how differently James and Sirius react versus Harry. Harry had grown up neglected and abused, leaving him with a lifelong distrust of adults as a child, and other people in general as he grew older. James and Sirius are children who experienced a lot of love, maybe Sirius didn't get it from his family, but he certainly got it from James and James' parents, who considered him part of their own, especially since they are in fact somewhat related. This is why James and Sirius appear to struggle very little in sharing the story with Fleamont, because Fleamont was a person of authority they both trusted and loved, as their parent. And children who are loved and cared for at home will always turn to their parents first, than try to take everything on on their own. At least I try to believe in that, otherwise, the world has gone to shit.
> 
> Also, now that I reread this again after hitting POST, I realized Sirius didn't answer Lily's question about how Harry was still alive after Voldemort killed him a second time in the final battle. I don't want to go change that now so I'll probably write about it in some future chapter. I hope I don't forget lmao.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More of the lovely Potter family? Why yes, of course!

Whatever Sirius might have been expecting from telling Fleamont about Harry, the spectacle they were treated to after was nothing short of sublime. Watching Fleamont Potter transform from James’ kindly, elderly, doting father transform into the stern, fearsome, authoritative Pureblood patriarch with a bone to pick on the safety and protection of the children whose school administration he trusted with his heir and son’s life was nothing short of a metamorphosis of the most awe-inspiring order. In his sensible black robes, he looked nothing like the formidable politician that his father, Henry Potter, had been. But the way that the privacy bubble snapped in the congregation of wizards behind the thin screen shielding Harry’s bed at the wave of his wand suggested otherwise.

Madam Pomfrey, it seemed, was stumped with how to treat her patient: Harry couldn’t be woken from whatever magical sleep that Malfoy person had induced on him when he healed the Sectumsempra wounds on his chest and torso, and she’d been arguing long and hard with Dumbledore and Slughorn, both of whom were opposed to sending the time-traveling boy to St Mungo’s where he was liable to come into more contact with people of another time and change more things in the past and affect his future.

Sirius thought that ship has pretty much sailed with Andromeda and Croaker’s deaths, though he could see how caution could be the better part of valor in this case. Having Harry exposed to too many people weakened their control over a situation that was rapidly spinning out of control, and there was every chance that the tiniest of changes could result in Harry not being born at all, which was what Dumbledore was trying to avoid in the first place.

Sirius had no idea what that would mean for Harry, but it couldn’t be anything good. He’d already seen how the smallest of changes resulted in Harry losing a massive chunk of his memories of his adulthood. When Sirius had first received the vision of the future from the diadem, Harry had forgotten that he’d been working for years on the Time Turner with Draco Malfoy. By the time they’d been in the cave and his old, painful memories had attacked him, the visceral way in which he’d cried out for his sons (and not daughter) told Sirius that it was likely he was now at a period where they’d only just been born, and if any of the jumbled, fragmented nonsense Harry had spouted in the Astronomy Tower was to be believed, it seemed Harry was back now to being sixteen, in his sixth year, when Dumbledore died, and the school was taken over by Death Eaters.

Sirius realized with a dawning horror that Harry’s memories had leached to a point beyond where he’d died 1998. He was stumped as to what that meant, but if this spiral continued, very soon, Harry would not be left with anything, and he would be an adult wizard with all the knowledge and memories of a toddler.

His introspection was cut short by Lily grabbing his arm as James guffawed beside him and elbowed him for attention. “Pads, are you watching this? Dad is just eviscerating our teachers without even breaking a sweat.”

Lily let out a squeaky laugh that sounded like she was torn over finding absurd amusement as Fleamont towered over a saggy-jowled Slughorn and demanded that he release his grandson from the future to him where he could obtain the appropriate medical care for him, as it was apparent Pomfrey’s skills as a mediwitch were insufficient to treat not only Harry’s wounds, but what appeared to be severe mental trauma and post-traumatic stress.

“Wherever might you have heard of this wild notion, Fleamont? This boy’s name is Harry Patter, and last I heard, neither you, Charlus nor Henry had any such relation.”

James’ father drew to his full height. He was a slight man, tall and thin with the build of an academic rather than an athlete, had nothing of the sprightly lean muscle that James developed from hours spent playing Quidditch, or even the sinewy sort of build that Harry had. Fleamont Potter, at sixty-eight, was the bookish sort of old man, the sort who wouldn’t be out of place in a job similar to Madam Pince’s at some ancient, dusty library, especially with the studious air he always affected with his spectacles having those odd goggle-shaped moon glass that James once explained to Sirius was for reading ancient rune or glyph texts on potion-making. But the way his righteous indignation swirled around him now like some night-blended cloak of power that lent a razor’s edge to the glint in his hazel eyes was stunning.

“Are you calling my son a liar, Horace? James and Sirius know about this and they’ve told me, because I’ve a right to care for my grandson. He belongs with my family, and as Lord Potter, I advise you to think about your answer long and hard before you find yourself a pariah in the academic circles of the potion masters guilds, and no amount of brown-nosing among your Slug Club will ever help your reputation recover.”

“Fuck,” Lily breathed, unable to contain the chortling anymore.

Sirius had to agree. “Prongs, is your dad a Slytherin? I’ve never heard a threat that sounded so… laden with poison, even from my family.”

James didn’t know whether to be torn with pride over his father’s transformation from bookish scholar to proud family patriarch or shame over the blatantly lethal use of the Potter name to ruin another person’s good name. “Mum was the Slytherin one between them; you know how she always tricks us into staying in whenever she feels we’re up to no good with the town muggles. Dad’s always been so quintessentially Ravenclaw, I’d never realized he could be like this.”

In the end, there’d been nothing Dumbledore or Slughorn could do. Pomfrey had been so confounded by the revelation that she’d taken Harry’s hand to draw a tiny bit of blood to perform a quick ancestry spell, one that instantly confirmed that indeed, the boy in the hospital bed was the as-yet unborn child of James Potter and Lily Evans, the two of them glowing blue with Pomfrey’s illegal use of the spell, and confirming that Fleamont did indeed have a right to the release of his grandson to him.

Before long, they had Flooed back to the Potter’s Somerset chateau, courtesy of Fleamont strong-arming Dumbledore into allowing them to use the Headmaster’s Floo. Mrs Potter’s sharp exclamation of surprise as Fleamont tumbled out, Harry’s immobile body floating behind him, followed by James, Sirius and Lily, sent the Potter house elves into a flurry of activity. She commandeered the care for the unconscious, unfamiliar boy that looked so much like her husband and son into a sickroom used for her private Healing practice, one that Sirius knew had brought further prestige to the Potter name (not like they needed it; in Sirius’ opinion, the Potters were the best family that ever existed in Wizarding Britain), put the house elves to work preparing tea and pastries for the three hungry teenagers, and a hot toddy for her husband, who looked like he could use a really stiff drink.

As the four of them sat in the west-facing solar where the weak late afternoon winter sun cast long plays of light and shadow on the beautifully polished maple floors and lush carpets, warming Sirius’ cold, stiff limbs in ways he would never have experienced had they still been in Scotland, Fleamont asked Sirius if he was feeling well enough to describe what he knew in detail of Harry’s life and the future that loomed over them.

He flicked a quick wary glance at James and Lily, aware that while James knew the gist of how the future unfolded for Harry, he didn’t have the sort of sordid details that Sirius kept close to his chest, for fear that giving voice to that future would make it real.

“Well,” he said, fidgeting with his cup of tea nervously. “You already know that… that everyone dies, right. There was a prophecy, see. Britain had devolved into an all-out war by the time the three of us finish school. It’s—the Ministry would actively and aggressively pursue Voldemort and his followers, but with all the bigoted Purebloods on their side, it was slow-going and not very successful. Dumbledore organized a pocket of resistance from his position at Hogwarts. He recruited graduating students, the same way Voldemort’s people were recruiting the children of Purebloods in the school too. We—we all joined Dumbledore, the Order of the Phoenix, he called it.”

Lily nodded eagerly. It seemed this piece of information, she knew about. “Harry told me Dumbledore had spoken to you and James and Remus and Peter. He said he was a member.”

Sirius and James shrank back at the angry expression that flitted for a moment through Fleamont’s face. After the spectacular show of force in the Hogwarts hospital wing, the two of them weren’t ever underestimating James’ father ever again. But the expression was gone before it had a chance to take root and Fleamont smiled kindly at Sirius.

“Go on, lad, I’m not angry, just… I suppose I am disappointed that the people I have entrusted your care and education to have been recruiting you to fight in a war that was not of your choosing.” Fleamont looked ancient in his tiredness as he sipped his spiked tea. “The three of you are so young yet. That includes your other friends and schoolmates, who may have been fighting on the other side of the war. You should be thinking more about your NEWTs and dating and—“ he grinned at James who was trying to sneak a bit of the bourbon into his own tea, flushing when he realized he’d gotten caught. “And giving your elderly parents a headache over childish, teenage boy antics.”

“But we wouldn’t be able to do that anyway, if the times we’re in devolved into an all-out war like Sirius describes,” Lily reasoned.

Fleamont nodded tiredly. “I know, lass, I know. Still, it does not look good for our leadership to be recruiting children, when there are adults, trained and specialized into the handling of such an incursion. Where are the Aurors in this story, Sirius? What of Barty Crouch and Amelia Bones? Where is Alastor Moody?”

Sirius scowled, his hands shaking as he remembered how future-him had been cast aside when James and Lily died. “Oh, Crouch is there alright—there to host a trial for his son being found out to be a Death Eater, but sending me straight to Azkaban only on the flimsiest of suspicions, without trial or any investigation, after James and Lily—“

James shifted a bit and took his hand warmly. “It’s alright, Pads. You’re getting ahead of yourself, though. Dad needs to understand what we’re facing if he’s to help us, if he’s to help Harry.”

Sirius shook his head, clearing his throat of the heavy feel of betrayal that recalling the vision left in his mouth. “Yeah. Anyway, yes, there was a prophecy, about how the one who would vanquish the Dark Lord would be born at the end of July of 1980, to people who’ve thrice defied him. Dumbledore heard the prophecy from the witch he was interviewing to replace Professor Delphi in the Divination post. I seem to recall she was a seventh year Hufflepuff when we were in our third year. You remember her, Prongs, Sybil Trelawney. Moony hated her fake crystal ball so much he pranked it into one of those reflective disco ball lights. That was about the time I told you that Moony’s the sharp quill out of all of us after all.”

“Trelawney!” Lily exclaimed, her voice uncharacteristically venomous. “I remember that prank. She cried so hard because she’d predicted herself failing her Divination NEWTs from a terrible accident to her ‘powers’. Marlene told me all about it; she hated Sybil so much because a few weeks before that, Sybil had told Philip Bones that his family tree tapestry would be blown apart. It had to have been one of the few times I was glad for your pranking. She was such a floozy, an absolute fraud!”

“Of course, last summer, Philip’s family did get blown up by Death Eaters,” James said miserably. “Maybe the prophecy did have some credibility to it?”

Sirius nodded. “It did. There were two babies born at the end of July that year: Harry to you and Lily, and another boy to Frank and Alice Longbottom. Voldemort heard of the prophecy and decided Harry was his adversary, marked him and hunted him down. You and Lily went into hiding, and I was supposed to be the Secret Keeper of the Fidelius charm on your house, but we switched to Peter at the last minute. I’d told you Peter would be a more sensible choice, given that I was the better, more aggressive dueller and adversary, so Voldemort and his Death Eaters would naturally come after me instead, and I could draw them away.” He snorted derisively. “What a joke. Peter sold you out like cattle, and Voldemort killed you and Lily, but for whatever reason, he couldn’t kill your baby.

“Dumbledore later theorized it had to have been the Sacrificial Spell Lily cast as she died to protect the baby. It ripped through Magic itself, anchored on Harry, and rebounded Voldemort’s Killing Curse back at him, but not before tearing off a bit of his soul and implanting it on Harry.”

“So that’s why he sent Harry to Lily’s awful sister, instead of leaving him with you,” James breathed, awed. He turned to Lily earnestly. “Promise me, if we do ever get married and have children, you’d never leave any child of ours, magical or otherwise, to your sister. She’s awful in this story!”

Lily looked at him strangely and then grinned cheekily. “That’s a tall order from a boy I haven’t even gone out on a first date with!” All four of them laughed at James’ horrified expression. When they sobered, Lily asked Sirius again, “You still haven’t told us how Harry managed to live through all of this. I mean, I get that he lived past ’81 and Dumbledore supposedly… groomed him—it sounds so awful and unbelievable to say! I mean the headmaster has always been kind and protective to all of us, but you’re telling us he took Harry and put him in various abusive and dangerous situations to groom him to be his child soldier to fight on the good fight when everyone has died.”

“Harry still believes that, you know,” Sirius said quietly.“He still believes that the fate of the wizarding world somehow rests on his shoulders, and that’s why he thinks he needs to hunt down all these soul fragments, and destroy them, and then hunt down Voldemort himself. In his timeline, he had a fragment of Voldemort’s soul in him that needed to die, so Harry himself needed to die. It was why I think he’d had to live such a shitty life, to groom him into sacrificing himself to kill that soul shard. I mean, it didn’t really kill him—or maybe it did, but he was given the choice to come back, and just finish what Voldemort started. Hell, he thinks he’s the bloody cause of some magical plague that started after the final battle with Voldemort in his timeline, and that the only remedy for it is for him to die… again!”

James shook his head. “That’s all levels of seriously fucked up.”

Fleamont hummed darkly. “Watch your language, young man. But I agree, there’s much mental damage that being manipulated to be the center of a war would wreak on a person’s mind. I’m surprised that young man is even functioning as normally as James and Remus have described him.” He sighed. “We have to hope that Effie can somehow help him out of his trauma long enough for him to wake out of this strange magical coma he’s in for her to administer healing potions to help with the physical damage.”

“I have confidence in mum in this,” James declared. “If there’s anyone who can help Harry, it has to be her. In the meantime, we’ve got to do something about this quest of his. You told us the two of you went to some cave in the middle of nowhere to retrieve another of You-Know-Who’s soul fragment artifacts.”

Fleamont extracted the locket that he’d taken from Sirius when they were talking in the hospital wing. “I’ll speak with your grandfather if he still has those experimental basilisk venom poisons he’d worked on in his youth. In the meantime, I want no more adventures from any of you youngsters. There will be no joining of underground resistance forces to fight You-Know-Who in the place of trained Aurors and other adults. If Minister Minchum can’t control the spill of violence in our streets,then I think it is time the Potter seat in the Wizengamot was filled again, and for us to start working with our allies and consolidate power to fight You-Know-Who.”

“Harry spoke to Grandfather about it some, when we met him at Andromeda’s funeral,” Sirius muttered. “Grandfather said he’s going to rally the Purebloods against Voldemort. Said the diary killing Andromeda was an attack on Purebloods everywhere. Before the holidays started, I overheard Harry even talking to Rosier and Malfoy about how their families are going to align.”

Fleamont nodded and stood briskly. “Then it seems the lines on the sand have already been drawn, and Arcturus, for once in his life, is taking the high ground with the rest of the wizarding populace. Your young Harry is right, Sirius. We’re going to need all the help we can get to fight the gathering darkness in the horizon, and the Dark-aligned Pureblood families breaking away from You-Know-Who can only be a good thing.”

James, Sirius and Lily exchanged surprised but pleased glances. If the Potters were going to cast their political might with the Blacks and the Pureblood alliances the Blacks held, then there may truly be a chance to stop Voldemort now.

“What about the remaining horcruxes?” James asked, turning to Sirius. “Didn’t you say there were more, even with what you and Harry have taken and destroyed?”

“Apart from this locket, and the diary and diadem you mentioned?” Lily sounded revolted. “What kind of barbaric abomination would split his soul in so many ways like that?”

“Harry thinks there’s two more, but I didn’t get a good enough look at his list to find more than what we were going to hunt during the hols. He said something about Voldemort being obsessed with Hogwarts and the lore on the Founders, so that should be what we’re looking at. I mean, he’s probably right: the first one we found was Ravenclaw’s diadem, and this here is Slytherin’s locket.” Sirius shrugged. “Maybe there’s something like this from Hufflepuff and something from Gryffindor? I hope he still has the list. We could really use that to find out.”

“You can try to talk to Harry when he wakes up,” Fleamont told them firmly. “But there will be no more of these unnecessary excursions outside of school to hunt Horcruxes. I’m no mind healer, but I can see what you’ve had to do and what you faced traumatized you beyond the telling, Sirius. You may be in your majority now, but I will not have you placed in any unnecessary danger in my care. Leave the hunt and the fight to us, old-timers, who should have done better by you, and our poor young Harry. That goes for you as well, Jamie. And as for you, young lady,” he turned to Lily, smiling, “I believe it is high time I sent you back home to your family. Jamie’s told your father he’ll have you back before sundown and no son of mine will be breaking promises to the family of his fair lady. Not if he expects to go on another date.”

And with those parting words, even Lily, who protested loudly that she was no one’s fair lady, had to laugh.

That night, although Mrs Potter told Sirius and James that under no circumstances were to disturb Harry in his rest, Sirius couldn’t help but sneak out of the room he shared with James once he thought James was sound asleep. Mrs Potter put Harry in the next room, and thankfully decided not to stay there with him.

The room was moonlit from the tall French windows, only ajar by the smallest bit to let a tiny breeze in to cool Harry’s fevered dreams, exacerbated by Mrs Potter’s efforts to ease him into a more restful sleep. She’d assured Sirius and James that this was common with patients requiring extensive mind healing, that the dreams would taper off sooner rather than later, into something a bit more natural rest, but Sirius couldn’t just let his boyfriend suffer, and suffer alone at that.

Harry lay in the center of the great big king size bed in the guest room looking thin and small and helpless to the torment his mind conjured. Sirius snuck into a small sliver of space next to him, tucking his head against Harry’s quivering shoulder, reaching for his clammy, twitching hands, to brush cool relief against his skin. He was thankful that Mr and Mrs Potter would be here now to help them with the Horcruxes, fighting against Voldemort—maybe Mrs Potter would even find a cure or a counter-curse for the plague that Harry’s existence caused in his timeline, Sirius wasn’t sure. All he knew was that in the darkest night, Harry would still be his own priority, and damn everything else.

* * *

James had to smile to himself at how predictable his best friend was. There were many guest rooms in the Somerset mansion, but Sirius had _always_ shared James’ room from the time they were small children spending summers at the Potters’ country house. The moment Sirius thought he was asleep though, he’d quickly slipped out of bed in nothing but his pajama pants and sneaked off to spend the night with Harry.

What was it that Remus had called him? _Disney princess_.

He didn’t quite get the reference when he had Remus explain it to him later, but there was no denying that was Sirius to a T. Impetuous, romantic, loyal, and _such_ a drama queen. If there ever was anyone James knew who fit the mold of the Byronic hero of fairy tale in this modern day and age, it had to be Sirius.

He shook his head as he got up as well. He wasn’t going to begrudge his friend whatever romantic notions he’d gotten into his head about Harry. If Sirius was going to fall in love with anyone, James thought Sirius couldn’t do any better than James’ own son from the future. And anyway, Harry may have had a whole host of issues that he carried around like a massive chip on his shoulder, but it was obvious that he’d grown up a good man, despite James and Lily never having been there to provide any love or guidance to their son, and he was obviously quite attached to Sirius, as Sirius was utterly besotted with him.

No, James was more curious about another thing, and he waited until the sounds from the next room had tapered off into utter silence (he certainly hoped there wasn’t going to be any shagging going on in the next room, particularly if Harry was still injured!), before he did his own sneaking out.

As he expected, the door to his father’s study and private potions laboratory was slightly ajar. There were no locked rooms in the Potter house. James’ parents trusted him implicitly just as much as they doted on him. He’d grown up around potions experimentation, with his father being an accomplished Master, and his mother brewing her own draughts for her private Healing practice and he knew well enough not to meddle in these things when his parents were bent over their respective cauldrons.

It didn’t sound like there was any brewing going on though, so he stealthily tiptoed his way to the open door and took a peek.

His father sat at the massive study desk in the middle of the lavishly appointed room, and to his surprise, his grandfather sat on the couch next to it, his ebony wood cane propped against the leather-upholstered arm. They were talking, it seemed, but he wasn’t understand what his grandfather was saying. It sounded more like clicks and hisses and not at all like any sort of spoken human language James had ever heard.

He watched in rapt attention for a moment until his grandfather raised his white-covered head, thick eyebrows arched, and his father smiled.

“Stop listening at keyholes, son, and come inside,” Henry Potter called out, his voice still strong and deep for his ninety odd years.

Shamefaced, James shuffled in and joined two generations of Potter gentlemen as they shared a nightcap of brandy and cigars. Inside the study now, he was finally able to see what it was his grandfather was doing, emitting those strange hisses that made shivers travel down his spine: a small gold and black garden snake twined up his left forearm, and he was talking to it in Parseltongue.

James’ eyes widened. “Is that—?”

Henry smiled, his aged skin crinkling as his hazel eyes lit in the firelight in the hearth with undisguised mirth. “Jamie, my boy, I’d like you to meet Griselda. She’s a recent gift from Madam Marchbanks, for your father’s greenhouse while she’s still small. Snakes catch garden pests far more effectively than any potion-based pesticide, and keep the gnomes from developing far too deep an interest in the baby mandrakes.”

“Dad wants to be polite and ask for a second opinion with his new pet snake before we try out the basilisk venom on the locket,” Fleamont added, a touch drily.

James wrinkled his nose. “But what would she know? She’s just a garden snake.”

Henry let out a series of hisses that culminated in the snake turning it’s tiny diamond-shaped head towards James and flicking out its tongue at him in what would have been a threatening manner if she wasn’t about the size of a large centipede. His grandfather barked a laugh. “She tells you to learn respect, young man. Griselda is a Grootslang. She’s young yet, but she’ll grow into a massive 15 foot little monster once she reaches her adulthood in eighty five years.”

“They live that long?” James blinked. He really knew nothing about snakes. It wasn’t like he was very interested in what essentially was the symbol of the primary rival house of Gryffindor back in Hogwarts.

“They reach their maturity at that age,” Henry said patiently. “Magical snakes are tremendously wise and learned creatures, having lived such long lives filled with terrible and wonderful magics. It’s why the Ouroboros, the snake eating its own tail, is a symbol of eternity, rebirth, and creation. Your friend, Sirius Black, may know more on this, as I understand Orion would not have neglected to teach his son and the Heir to the House of Black the symbology of the creatures their House has chosen as its representation. Grootslang live up to three hundred years in the right conditions, though perhaps even Southern England climes may be far too cold for Griselda.”

James shivered, still wary of the snake and the way his grandfather was stroking its long, slithery body affectionately. “Does she know anything about destroying the soul artifacts? I mean apart from basilisk venom?”

Henry’s face fell. “Unfortunately, no. Gris knows of no other poison in the world stronger than basilisk venom. It’s so destructive and corrosive that very little protective material, whether mundane or magical, can withstand the poison. This is why dragon hide is one of the few materials, short of sheepskin and cowhide enchanted with the strongest of magics, remain the best protective material in handling them. Dragons are a form of serpent, and thus utterly resistant to the corrosive venoms of other serpents, including that of a basilisk.”

“So Gris—er her poison wouldn’t be able to destroy the locket?”

Fleamont was the one who shook his head. “Grootslang are not venomous in the way most snakes are poisonous. She does secrete venom, but its use is more towards healing than destruction. As much as dad wants his new pet to help, she won’t be able to besides give us some direction, which unfortunately, we already know from Sirius’ accounts of Harry’s experience with the horcruxes.” He smiled when James’ shoulders drooped in disappointment. “Fortunately, dad hasn’t been so thorough in destroying his research on basilisks during the heyday of his youth. Your mother found a vial of the venom preserved in our potion vaults in the Dorset cottage.”

He procured a small vial of clear, viscous fluid from one of the many drawers in his massive desk. “I’ve asked Sirius if he knew how Harry destroyed the locket Horcrux in his timeline, and evidently, one of his friends stabbed it with the Sword of Gryffindor, imbued by then with the basilisk venom from the time Harry first fought the guardian of the Chamber. The locket needs to be opened for it to be a viable avenue of attack.”

James reached out to grab the locket to open it then but his father slapped his hand away. “Don’t touch it. You’re young yet and haven’t honed your senses towards Dark magic, but even to my naked eye, I can see the swirl of evil around this trinket. I’m surprised it didn’t try to attack Sirius and Harry when they grabbed it from the cave. In any event, it can’t be opened by any normal physical means.”

Henry stood from the couch and took his cane, walking stiffly towards the desk where he stared down at the locket, his hazel eyes glowing behind his square glasses. James watched in rapt attention as his grandfather opened his mouth and hissed. The locket face flew open and a bright, malevolent white light sprang from within, growing blinding and pernicious as an ominous voice rang through the tall ceiling of the study, dark and gleeful and exultant at being released.

“ _Infidel of the tallest order!”_ it boomed as the light pulsed and Henry staggered back, his face growing grey and deathly pale. “ _You dare to seek my destruction, puny wizard who renounce the purity of your own blood? Your heart is an apostasy to the sacredness of magic, seeking to fill our ranks with filth and brigands who steal the power of our birthright before our very eyes as these muggles, no better than animals, multiply by the thousands to claim the sanctity of our magical birthright!_ ”

“Grandpa—!” James yelled as the light from the locket bore down at Henry, making him stagger and nearly fall if James hadn’t caught him. “Dad, the venom!”

Fleamont’s dextrous fingers were quickly sheathed in dragon hide as he unstoppered the vial. The basilisk venom was so thick, it seemed to take hours to pour from the mouth of the vial and onto the face of the locket, with its malignant light bearing down on Henry, and now James, caught in the maelstrom of a vision it was showing to his grandfather: a gathering of wizards in the middle of a graveyard, a man with mismatched eyes inciting a riot, a diabolical blue flame burning anyone who dared come near, even as the man seduced his enraptured audience to come closer, come hither… _throw yourself into the fire, James Potter…_

James could feel his will dissolve slowly as he let go of his grandfather, who collapsed onto the ground without support. The locket demanded allegiance by blood and sacrifice… into that blue flame in the vision. He was going to jump… he was going to—

A hiss of acid burning metal disrupted the sirensong of the vision and then an ear-piercing shriek echoed throughout the night blanketing the chateau house.

In the master bedroom, Euphemia Potter woke, disoriented and afraid for her life, for her husband and her son and what the future, fraught with danger and the threat of war, held for her little family.

In the guest room in on the opposite wing, Sirius Black woke from torrid dreams of black hair and green eyes. Whatever romantic notions that inhabited his dreams dissolved into shadowy hooded figures with a ghastly mouth, ready to leach away his happiness and suck out his soul. He whimpered and shuddered as he thought of himself in the future Harry had seen, thought of the broken escaped convict eaten by regret and despair, who tremored at the thought of dementors, and, unable to reconcile the irrational fear that struck his heart, shifted by instinct to take refuge in his animagus form, the massive black shaggy dog burying his head in the covers, front paws over his eyes as he shook and whimpered and prayed for the night to end.

Beside him, the nightmares that tormented Harry Potter’s mind ground to an abrupt halt, his mind going completely and utterly blank, as blank as the white train platform of King’s Cross. But this time it was empty. There was no Albus Dumbledore to give him a choice to live or die, no broken down shade of Tom Riddle, whining like a bloody, lacerated aborted baby under the bench, no Draco Malfoy to coerce him to finish his quest. King’s Cross was empty, no train on the tracks, no sound of Sirius’ laughter echoing, ghostlike, across the platform. In the middle of that emptiness, a voice he knew but couldn’t quite remember from where, hissed a sound that was both silent and unimaginably loud in his ears: “ _Wake up, you fool!”_

Harry’s eyes snapped open and a world of pain greeted him.

Back in the study, the scream echoed, ceaseless, unending. The light that had nearly fully engulfed James and Henry Potter shivered and snapped, and suddenly disappeared into nothingness.

The silence that followed was louder than the scream.

James stumbled back, nearly tripping and falling over, nearly crushing his frail grandfather’s prone body. His glasses were askew, fallen over his nose, his hair in such disarray as it looked as if he’d been tugging it out of his head. Before him, Fleamont held the empty vial; his father’s breaths came in ragged pants. Behind him, his grandfather moaned. The locket’s magic had taken so much out of him, but his life was saved by the little black and gold snake around his forearm. Griselda had sunk her fangs into his wrist, injecting her healing venom into his bloodstream.

James scrambled away from his father’s desk, where the ruined locket lay, smoking from the caustic effects of the basilisk venom. He crouched low to help his grandfather up and onto the couch.

Fleamont Potter heaved a great breath. “It’s over.”

James hugged his grandfather and looked up at his father with eyes dripping with tears of gratitude, for believing him, believing Sirius, for protecting his friends, for coming to their rescue. For not wanting to leave the future exactly as it would have unfolded in Harry’s life, the way Dumbledore seemed convinced it needed to. For uniting four generations of Potters under a single roof. “Thanks, Dad.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The scene that James glimpsed in the vision the locket showed Henry Potter is from _Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindelwald_. That weird-ass rally in the middle of the night in some Parisian graveyard, where Grindelwald smoked a magical bong and showed the wizards of Paris what would happen in World War II. This basically assumes that Henry had been at that rally. I did say I'd try to do something different with the locket, since I already did the diadem with trying to break Harry the way it happened in the books for Ron. This time, the locket enticed first Henry, then James. 
> 
> I thought of what scene I wanted to do and the movie, while not my favorite (I don't like any of the HP movies either, but whatevs, I found this one even more _meh_ than the HP ones), dramatized with words pretty well.


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not ashamed to write a self-indulgent filler chapter if I sneak in a tiny bit of plot at the end.

The first time Harry woke where he was fully conscious and not out of his mind and writhing in pain was on New Year morning. Even without his glasses, the bright, airy, well-appointed suite he realized he was in looked nothing like the Hospital Wing at Hogwarts, and for a moment, his heart seized with an irrational bout of visceral panic, even as he realized there was absolutely nothing stopping him from just up and disappearing and finding his way back to the school, the one safe space he’d always recognized, both in the current time he was stuck in, and in his previous lifetime.

Well, maybe there was a tiny something, as he peeked under the heavy duvet and realized he was entirely naked under the sheets. Probably wouldn’t do to just up and Apparate to the school absolutely starkers. McGonagall would have his head for indecent exposure and she’d already warned him about the displays of affection he and Sirius had done in full view of other students who may or may not find the sort of romance they had between schoolboys less than savory. He would have to hunt around for some clothes he could “borrow”, or at the very least Transfigure the sheets into something to keep himself decent. He could leave a note and then later ask Sirius to find him real clothes. If he even knew where Sirius was. He’d been so out of it in pain and horror that he remembered nothing of the past few days except the haunting trauma that was their escape from the Crystal Cave.

The other problem was that he didn’t have a wand. Narcissa never returned the hawthorn wand Draco had given him and he couldn’t remember where he’d lost the wand he’d taken from her. It wasn’t like his magic was back at full strength for him to manage with only the most rudimentary of wandless spells, and reaching down into his core, he _knew_ with a heavy certainty that whatever it had been that had given him his vastly overpowered magic was now utterly gone. He felt… cold. There was still certainly a spark of magic in him, but it wasn’t the same as how he’d been before, fiery and burning and practically leaking power. What was in him now… it was strange and different and felt… less than human.

He was debating whether he should try to Transfigure the sheets and the bed curtains anyway to look halfway decent (he’d think about how to even Apparate without a wand later; needs had to be addressed first, after all), when the door to the lavishly appointed room opened and the blurry figure of a woman with strawberry blond hair in cornflower blue robes that looked quite dated in his opinion swept in, holding a silver tea service.

“Oh, this is wonderful, you’re awake!” she exclaimed, floating the tea service to the ornate bedside table next to the massive bed and hurrying to his side.

Harry stared at her as she neared. She was old, perhaps in her sixties, her reddish blond hair streaked silver and white. Her face, though stern-looking with the straight red brows and piercing blue eyes, was kindly. She was beautiful and Harry wondered if he was having another out of body experience.

“Mum?” he breathed and wondered if the amount of magic he expended trying to get him and Sirius away from the cave island had instead accidentally transported him to another reality in which his mother was alive and well and—oh but he never wanted to leave this reality, this impossible pipe dream if that were the case!

The woman let out a small silvery laugh as she busied herself with trying to push him back down into the fluffy pillows and tugging the thick blanket up to his chest to preserve his dignity. “I think not, young man, although I must wonder what it is you’re seeing to think me young Ms Evans. She was here just yesterday to spend some time with your father to get to know each other, you know.”

She clucked and smiled and the twist in her mouth reminded Harry of the mischievous way that James would grin at him and Sirius when he thought they were being disgusting with their displays of affection. “Ah the sweetness of young love! Why, I remember when Monty and I were courting—he was already out of Hogwarts then, but working on his Mastery with Master Borage in the South Americas, and he would Portkey to Scotland every other weekend to join me for my Hogsmeade weekend. A most chivalrous thing, you young Potters!”

Harry’s brow furrowed. Monty? Young Potters?

The woman’s smile widened as she patted down his unruly hair and reached across to the bedside table tea service for a potion vial. “My name is Euphemia Potter nee Greengrass. And if the daft stories your young father and his best friend have been telling Monty and Henry are to be believed, then I suppose by all rights, I’m your grandmother.” Her smile turned cheeky, dimpling her uncharacteristically smooth cheeks in the same exact way it did when James smiled. “You may call me Nan.”

Harry’s eyes widened comically as realization came with a warm flush of something Harry could only describe as the pleasure of finally belonging. “You’re my grandma?”

Euphemia patted his cheek fondly. “That I am, young man, and no one could be happier. I never would have thought Monty or I would live to see our James give us a grandchild; we’ve had him so late in our lives that by the time he blossomed into adulthood and ready to be married, we thought we might be too old and grey to be able to enjoy his children. But magic, it seems, works in the most beautiful of mysterious ways to have given you to us now. Look at you! So handsome and strapping and looking so like our wonderful Jamie, though I certainly recognize the green eyes that can only belong to your mother, Lily. No wonder young Sirius is so smitten!” She laughed again and it sounded to Harry’s ears like the warmth of a comfortable fire in the Gryffindor common room hearth while he, Ron and Hermione bent over their Charms homework. “But come now, you need to eat, and you need to take your potions to get you well enough to return to school on the morrow.”

She passed him the vial and Harry didn’t even think to look or smell what it was as he unstoppered it and swallowed its contents in one gulp. He was transfixed by this vision of a stately elderly woman, smiling so sweetly and dotingly at him as she passed him a steaming bowl of porridge from the tea service and then busied herself with rooting through the large wardrobe cabinetacross from the bed to tug out robes and undergarments.

“These were from when James was in his fifth year,” she told him as she pressed neatly folded maroon-colored robes at the edge of the bed. “You’re so much thinner than him and we’ve so little time to get you to a healthier weight. I wish Jamie had managed to get you and Sirius here for longer, but I suppose there isn’t much to be done about that, given this quest that Sirius has said you were determined to undertake?”

Harry stopped eating and stared at her. She _knew_ about the Horcruxes? Did Sirius tell? Did James?

Euphemia tutted as she took the empty bowl away and pressed a cup of tea in his unmoving fingers. “Oh, don’t take that look with me, young man. Sirius had done naught but the right thing, telling your grandfather all about this awful business with You-Know-Who. You young people should not have to be the ones gallivanting off to rid our wizarding society of scourges such as him. Leave it to the Aurors, I say, though Henry, that is your great grandfather, has some opinions on the quality of Aurors with which our DMLE has populated its ranks lately, if all these horrible disappearances and deaths in the papers are to be believed. Augusta must be apoplectic with the way Barty’s training up his people, especially if her Frank is working for him. Terrible business it is, chasing after Death Eaters.”

“Um, Nan?” Harry tried, his voice cracking at the word that he’d never had to use in his life, both his lives, before. It sounded so fantastical, so wondrous that he would have an opportunity to meet her, much less be hugged by her as she was doing to him now, and he couldn’t help but bury his face into her shoulder, shuddering with relief at the lemony potion scent of her soft red-blond tresses. “Where’s Sirius and James?”

She hugged him for a second longer, as if unwilling to let him for fear that he might disappear into thin air. “Out in the dining room, I expect, fighting over who gets the last piece of bacon. They should be by as soon as they’re done. I know Jamie’s convinced your grandfather that if you’re well enough today, the three of you may have a New Year about town. I hear that Jamie’s even convinced your fair mother, Lily, to sneak out of her family’s New Year celebration to join you at Godric’s Hollow. Monty should be over at the Evanses soon to pick her up. It should be an historical trip for you. Fleamont seems to think your wizarding education and knowledge of your ancestry is spotty at best, if you’d never lived with your parents in your timeline.”

Harry was just as reluctant to let her go as she cleaned up after him and took the tea service. “Will I—will you let me stay here until the end of the hols?”

Euphemia’s eyes looked as if her heart had been broken with the timid question. “Harry,” she said softly, the first time she’d called him by name and it made something deep in his chest pulse and squeak, as if begging to be let out in the sudden prickle in his eyes, “of course you’ll stay here. If the three of you didn’t have to go back to Hogwarts tomorrow to continue your education and take your NEWTs, Monty and I would never let you go. If you’re worried about your father being of the same age and you not having a family to belong to, I’m telling you now that you never have to worry. We Potters stick together, and if we need to adopt James’ son from the future the way we’ve adopted his best friend who’s been so maltreated by his family, we will.”

Harry blinked away the onslaught of tears in his eyes as a watery smile touched his lips. “Does that mean you’re not… averse to me and Sirius… er being together?”

Euphemia set the tray down to hold his face again, bending forwards to press warm, loving lips to his forehead, right where his lightning bolt scar mangled the smooth skin. “I could never be averse to the love and devotion you and Sirius show to each other. Both of you have been through so much in very different ways and Monty and I, and I’m sure even your young father, all believe that whatever is between you and Sirius is a fragile beautiful thing that needs nurturing, not only between the two of you, but from the wider world of the people who love you. And there’s no other way we can show our love for you both better than to let you two follow where your hearts lie.”

Harry lowered his eyes and sniffed. “Thanks, Nan.”

“Nonsense. It’s my privilege that you and young Sirius even deigned to share this with us. I know the sort of romance between you two is not widely accepted in either worlds, Muggle or magical, but you must know that in this house, and in any house where a Potter resides, your love will always be accepted and cherished.”

She smiled at him again, the fondest, most tender smile he’d ever seen in his life, before bustling out ofroom to grant him some privacy to clean himself up and get dressed for the day, and nearly collided as three teenagers burst into the room amid laughter and gaiety and the flush of budding courtship between James and Lily, who were blushing as they held hands and bounded into the room after a hyperactive, ecstatic Sirius, who couldn’t believe that his boyfriend was finally awake and well enough to spend a day out with the three of them.

“Careful now, Harry is still recovering,” Euphemia said as she stepped out. “And Sirius, you would really do well to give him some privacy so he can get dressed, young man. I’ll not have you defiling my guest rooms with your antics.” She grinned wickedly. “Remember that Harry is your best friend’s son!”

Sirius blushed violently as he realized that Harry was naked in the middle of the room, with only a blanket preserving his dignity, and grabbed Lily and James, who were also pink-cheeked at the expanse of naked boy in the room. “All right people, clear out and stop ogling my boyfriend! He’s mine, Evans, Mrs Potter just reminded you that he’s your son, have a heart and all that!”

Laughing at the strangeness of the reality he’d somehow fallen into, Harry let Sirius drag everyone out, giving him a saucy wink as he tugged the large double doors shut, before he got out of bed to get dressed. His heart was so full with thoughts of family and belonging and the overwhelming love he had for his Nan, and for James and Lily who in this day and age were really more like friends than parents, and of course, for the tender bloom of young love blossoming between him and Sirius, that he’d completely forgotten that there was almost nothing of his memories of his old lifetime that was left. He was Harry Potter, seventeen and an anomalous existence in 1977, and he remembered nothing of a life lived after 1998, whatever horrors that had befallen him after the war barely even registering as a distant echo in the hidden corners of his mind, as they were flooded over by the warmth and contentment of being among his true family, alive and well and in a space he was going to treasure and keep safe, if it was the last thing his strange new magic was going to allow him to do.

New Year’s day spent in the wizarding quarter of Godric’s Hollow felt to Harry something akin to the burst of excited warmth he’d felt blooming in his chest back in third year when Sirius Black, then a half-starved, hanging-by-the-last-thread-of-his-ragged-robes deranged escaped convict, offered Harry the promise of an escape from the Dursleys by asking if he would like to come live with him when his name was cleared. It never materialized in Harry’s timeline, of course, as Sirius died in the battle of the Department of Mysteries, due to Harry’s own ineptitude and gullibility. That promise, to him, had been even more magical than the moment Hagrid first introduced him to the Wizarding World, when he tapped the bricks that led into the wondrous delights of Dragon Alley, for there was no magic stronger than the pull of family and belonging in Harry’s heart.

Walking now on the slightly slippery, snow-covered streets of Godric’s Hollow, hand in hand with a resplendent in royal blue winter robes with nary a shade of the haunting hollowness of Azkaban, teenage Sirius, and playing chaperone to James and Lily’s _real_ first date, while Fleamont and Euphemia trailed after the four lovestruck teenagers felt even more magical and surreal to Harry than Sirius’ promise to him in his timeline. Harry could hardly believe how full his heart felt as Fleamont and Euphemia ushered them into shop after wizarding shop, showering James and Harry and Sirius with new robes, fine quills and potion ingredients for Harry and Lily’s secret project for Remus, and all manner of sporting supplies for the Quidditch-mad James. Even Lily was hard-pressed to decline when Fleamont insisted on buying her the latest copy of _The Practical Potioneer,_ where he told her to document and publish said secret project she and Harry were working on when they’d come upon the magical formula on the cure for Lycanthropy.

Harry no longer remembered the formula for Wolfsbane potion, having lost all of his memories after the war, and he was thoroughly relieved that he’d shared it with Lily, who would have the skill and knowledge to brew the potion expertly for Remus, even if she didn’t know who it was exactly she was making the potion for. He had no doubts that, given the right tutelage, his mother would eventually come upon a tweak to the formula that could totally eradicate the worst of the Lycanthropy symptoms and provide Remus with a cure some day, and he stared at her with fond eyes as he and Sirius watched James and Lily from a discreet distance as they talked quietly, their heads gathered close, in intimate conversation.

“Is it weird to think that my dad, grandpa, and me all have the same weird taste in women?” he asked, as Euphemia approached the couple to ask if they were ready for lunch at the two tavern. “I mean, look at Nan and Lily. I know they look nothing much alike, but they’re both redheads. And I know you know I had that massive crush on Ginny back in my own sixth year timeline.”

Sirius smirked. “Yeah, must be something in the water in West Country you Potters all consume. I know James’ Nan was also a redhead, given she was half a Prewett, some distant relation of Fab and Gid if I’m not wrong, a lady from the continent.” He patted Harry’s cheek affectionately when he continued to stare. “It’s called a type, lover boy. And I’m all sorts of glad you’ve broken out of it by dating _me_ instead. Or I’d be supremely offended if you decided to go after my cousin Mafalda instead.”

Harry shook his head. “Mafalda looks a lot like Ginny, but she didn’t quite have her temperament. Ginny was nicer.”

Sirius’ grin had a bit too much teeth to be just mischievous. “And I’d be nicer too if you’d stop talking about your ex-wife.”

Harry looked revolted. “I got married?”

“Of course you did,” Sirius said matter-of-factly, looking at him as if he’d grown two heads. “You two had three kids. Don’t you remember?”

Harry shook his head no. “I don’t remember anything, except dying… Voldemort killed me, and I don’t even know if I managed to end the war in my time at all. Everyone thought I would, but I died anyway, before I managed to destroy all his horcruxes. Some hero I was, dying at the most inconvenient moment when everything was just about to end.”

Sirius took his face in his hands and forced his eyes away from where James had just given Lily a kiss on the cheek. His grey eyes blazed with some unnamed emotion. “Harry, don’t you ever tell me that you were never a hero, because you fucking _are_. You don’t remember it anymore; I’ve no idea what happened to… to eat all your memories away like that, but you _did_ end the war in your timeline. You came back after Voldemort tried to kill you, and you _ended_ it, utterly, completely, succinctly.” He sighed as Harry lowered his eyes, pressing his lips against the corner of Harry’s mouth. “Not only did you end it, love. You continued to work in your adulthood to make Wizarding Britain safe for everyone, especially for people like your mother, who’re still thoroughly discriminated against here and now. And when you found out that you were linked to some nefarious illness that plagued your time, you decided to up and sacrifice yourself in an effort to end it. If that isn’t what a hero is meant to be, I don’t know what else is. You’re the absolute definition of a hero, all noble and self-sacrificing, and the _hottest_ thing on two legs, Harry Potter. And you damn well ought to remember that.”

Harry could feel heat licking his ears at Sirius’ earnest, heartfelt declaration, and he would have opened his mouth to protest if the approach of two people he never thought he would encounter in Godric’s Hollow rounded a corner and came upon them instead.

Lucius Malfoy was bundled in a stately fur-lined black cloak, his pale cheeks ruddy with the cold. Beside him, Evan Rosier was similarly dressed. Both boys had identical smirks on their faces.

“Fancy meeting you here, Patter,” Rosier greeted with a casual wave. Lucius merely nodded, and Harry gave him back a cautious nod in return. “I thought you and Black decided to stay in school?”

“Did you have family in West Country?” Lucius inquired.

Harry shrugged. There was absolutely no animosity between them at all. Lucius and Rosier were cautious allies in the fight now against Voldemort. That didn’t mean he was keen to share his true background to the two of them, but he probably should have spent his hopes on better things as Fleamont came upon them, Abraxas Malfoy and a dark haired woman on his arm, coming from the direction Lucius and Rosier came from. Harry couldn’t believe that Abraxas Malfoy was even more identical to his grandson, Draco, in Harry’s timeline than Lucius was. He had the same white-blond hair, and a delicateness of features. The only difference was the cold sharpness of his blue eyes. Draco and Lucius evidently got their grey eyes from the woman on his arm, whom Harry surmised was Lucius’ mother, Rosier’s aunt.

“Ah, Fleamont and your adopted brood, I see,” Abraxas greeted with a cool nod at Fleamont, who smiled a glacial smile in return.

“Hello, Abraxas, Delphine,” Fleamont said, voice cool and formal, but not combatant. “I understand your son and nephew are friends with my… ah, shall we say, long lost relation, Harry?”

All three Malfoys and Rosier looked astounded. Lucius asked shrewdly, “Mr Potter, how did you come to know Patter here?”

Fleamont’s smile was devious. “A fluke, really, young Lucius. James had been adamant to visit his best friend over the holidays back in Hogwarts, and Euphemia recognized Harry as the son of one of my cousins on the Fleamont side, in the continent. I had no idea my cousin Alain Fleamont had passed away and his son adopted by muggles.” Harry marveled at his grandfather’s ability to lie and manipulate and wondered how he would have fared in Slytherin if he’d inherited even a tiny bit of this level of skill. “Are we not all so fortunate that Harry ended up in England in time to go to Hogwarts for his sixth year?”

Something flitted across Abraxas’ features as he stared at Harry and then Sirius. “Of course, Fleamont. And I see you still have young Mr Black in your charge. Arcturus worries about you, young man.”

Sirius snorted. “I’m safe and where I should be, Mr Malfoy.”

“Be that as it may, Sirius,” Delphine Malfoy interrupted before Lucius could respond with something rude, “I think it might be a time for you to consider being with your family. Lord Black has threatened to break off the engagement between Cyril’s son and your cousin, Bellatrix for how the young couple insist on their support for He Who Must Not Be Named. Nasty family business with the Blacks and the Lestranges these days. Could throw the old families into the sort of blood feuds that the Blacks have been waging with you muggle-loving Potters for years.”

Fleamont exhaled noisily but did not rise to the bait. “I see it must be time to speak with Arcturus soon then. It seems the Blacks and the Potters can see eye to eye, at least where You Know Who is concerned.”

Abraxas arched a cool brow. “Indeed? You shall have to keep me informed, Fleamont. I’m interested to know which side of the fence you cast your lot, given you’ve never been fond of Arcturus _or_ Cyril.”

Fleamont placed one hand on Harry and Sirius’ shoulders. “I’m sure Arcturus will let the greater wizarding population know. And if not, you’ll find out on the Wizengamot floor.”

Mrs Malfoy gasped. “You mean to take Henry’s place finally?”

“I think it’s time the wizards of Britain, and the lords and ladies of the Wizengamot, took a firm stand against You Know Who, rather than let our young do the fighting for us,” Fleamont said mysteriously as he nodded at the Malfoys and Rosier. “Good day and a happy new year, to you and yours, Abraxas.”

Harry waved awkwardly at Lucius and Rosier, as Sirius sneered at his cousin. As they followed Fleamont back to where Euphemia regaled James and Lily with stories of her courtship with Fleamont, he wondered what all the veiled political-speak among the Pureblood lords meant, and if indeed, Arcturus Black was making headway in ostracizing wizards who supported Voldemort. He wondered if it meant an entirely different future than surely what the world had been when he was born.

That evening, after a fine dinner courtesy of the Potter house elves, and in the midst of enjoying pudding that Euphemia Potter made and served herself, Harry finally met his great grandfather, as Henry Potter descended back into the Somerset chateau. Fleamont had told the teenagers that Henry had returned to his Dorset cottage to recuperate for the day after the locket had attacked him and James when the three of them tried to destroy it the night Harry first awoke from his magical coma.

Harry was surprised to see the elderly gentleman, even more lined and aged than Fleamont, with a flowing white beard spotted with brown-black hair not very different from Dumbledore, limping into the dining room, cane in one hand, and a fine-looking black and gold garden snake in the other. The old man smiled as he took off his fancy top hat and let his son usher him to the table to a spot of Firewhiskey while the boys enjoyed dessert. Lily had gone home to prepare for their return to Hogwarts the next day.

“Ah, finally, I meet a descendant after my own heart,” Henry greeted, his hazel eyes sparkling when Harry saw the Firewhiskey and poured himself a measure, to Sirius and James’ squawking complaints when Euphemia waved the two of them away. “Effie, let the boys have a drink. A glass shouldn’t incapacitate them from the long ride back to Scotland tomorrow. You know young Sirius is in his majority now, and James should be approaching his.”

“I can’t believe you’re my son and you’re _older_ than me,” James groused even as Fleamont obligingly poured a shot for him and Sirius.

“Don’t knock being sixteen,” Harry advised his father. “Adulthood is overrated.”

Sirius raised his tumbler, his mouth twisted in a lop-sided smile that told Harry he was probably thinking of Harry’s tormented adult life. “Isn’t that the truth.”

The older Potters laughed as they clinked their glasses in toast and drank to the New Year. Henry smiled at his great grandson and drew Harry close to introduce him to his pet snake.

“Harry, your father and grandfather tell me that you’ve inherited the Gift of our ancestors that passed down to your greatest adversary,” he said as he put the arm where the snake was twined on the table, allowing the serpent to slither away from him and rear up against Harry’s face.

Harry stared at its molten gold eyes, mesmerized. “You’re a Parselmouth too?”

“That I am, lad. It’s a gift rare enough in our line that very few people know of this. These modern days, wizarding folk think a gift such as ours is a sign of Dark magic. And they may not be wrong—too many of our kindred have used the Gift to wreak havoc among our kind in the centuries that passed since the gift first manifested in the ancestors of our ancestors, the Peverells.” He smiled when Harry reached a finger for the snake to taste as Sirius and James watched with rapt attention. “Go on, young man. Her name is Griselda, and given that my son has none of the Gift that you and I have, I think it best that Madam Marchbanks’ esteemed offering for Fleamont’s impending return to the Wizengamot be passed to you than any of us.”

“Gris saved Grandpa’s life from the locket, Harry,” James said in a hushed, awed voice. “I never would have thought that of a snake, given our rivalries with Slytherin, but then you’re here.”

Euphemia snorted. “And what did you think I was, young man? Chopped liver?”

“Mum, you know I didn’t mean that,” James complained to the affectionate cuff that his mother gave him.

Harry smiled distractedly, his belly warm from the Firewhiskey and the feeling of being home as he let Griselda twine into his forearm, the one where he had the scar from Nagini attacking him in Bathilda Bagshot’s home in Godric’s Hollow, an entire lifetime into the future, or the past. He couldn’t be sure anymore.

“ _Hi Griselda_ ,” he hissed, smiling as the serpent slid into his sleeve and tucked her head out to hiss back at him.

“ _You smell different, speaker,”_ she told him, and he laughed quietly.

_“I come from a different… time, I suppose is what you can call it.”_

Griselda’s head reared into a tiny wave. “ _No, speaker. It’s your magic that smells different. Not human._ More _than human.”_

Harry gaped, open mouthed as the snake hissed contentedly against the warmth of his arm. Henry stared at him with ancient, sad-looking eyes, as if he understood more than Harry even knew.

“All in good time, son,” he told Harry, touching his mouth with a trembling hand, and then Harry’s forehead, against his scar. “It’s a terrible thing, to be touched by Death. Our ancestors have condemned us to a life led in this path when, in their folly, they deigned to escape him with the creation of the Hallows.”

 _“But you are the Master now, speaker,_ ” Griselda added. “‘ _The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.’ You have made it reality._ ”

Harry didn’t know what to say to the macabre exchange, so he sipped his Firewhiskey silently, and let Sirius and James and Fleamont and Euphemia pick up the conversation around him.

That night, as he and Sirius lay together in the guest room beside James’ room, Sirius’ legs once again tangled warm and naked against his, his long hair curling against Harry’s neck as they slept, Griselda slithering on the floor to hunt mice and small insects, he thought he dreamed of Death in the body of Draco Malfoy, staring at him with tired grey eyes and a sad, ancient smile.

“ _I thought Draco told you to sever your tethers, Harry Potter, but it seems you twine your magic around those who love you all the more. Perhaps there_ are _indeed some ways that you will manage to triumph against the rip and tears of Chaos against life and death and magic. Perhaps Draco is wise in choosing you as you lie with your Grim-Seer, who clings to you as life clings to magic. Perhaps your little life means more to us all than just the lynchpin to be erased._

_“I’ll never know, but I’ll honor the magic that I bestowed upon your ancestors, as I promised young Malfoy that he may yet have a chance to win our wager.”_

When he woke the next morning, ready to go back to Hogwarts with Sirius and James, he found Gris on the bedside table, twined on a wand that was most definitely _not_ Sirius’. For the last time Harry had seen it, it had been sealed in Dumbledore’s tomb, to prevent the swath of chaos and death that followed the wand in its bloody wake. He took the Elder Wand in his hand and marveled at the way the strange cold magic that pulsed in his core sang and swelled and exulted as it returned into the hands of The Master of Death.


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: LGBT slurs, bigoted thinking about characters who are rather obviously gay and/or bisexual in the fic, and a perpetuation of the Jewish stereotyping as Jews being depicted by the goblins in the books.

Harry watched Remus rub his eyes as he kissed Fleamont and Euphemia goodbye, then was pulled into a massive bearhug with his grandparents and Sirius by James. The four of them were very nearly late as James had a small fight with Sirius over who was going to Apparate with Harry to King’s Cross. James was of the persuasion that he _had_ to have a “ride” with Harry in case Harry accidentally ripped through the Hogwarts wards again and Apparated whomever he was with directly into the school. This prompted a much longer argument with Fleamont and Euphemia, who were convinced Harry was going to splinch himself if he was left to Apparate on his own while they took Sirius and James, and Harry had to reassure them that the accidental Apparition into the Astronomy Tower’s observation deck had been the result of a long drawn out hallucination caused by having drank the Potion of Despair in the cave, and that no, he was certainly of quite sound mind now to Apparate safely to King’s Cross—he had a license and everything in the timeline he came from (he didn’t he was certain, since all he knew was that he hadn’t lived through the war, even though Sirius assured him he most certainly did—he was thirty six when he arrived in 1977!)

In the end, Harry Apparated by himself, and James and Sirius went with his grandparents, and there was very little time to spare to get through the barrier, where they were then joined by Remus and Lily, Peter just a few steps away chatting with Dorcas, whom Remus assured them had finally agreed to go out with Peter.

“Is this what it feels like to have an out of body experience?” he asked Lily, who grinned knowingly. “I feel like I’m drunk or high and seeing in triplicate. I swear I didn’t hit the Giggle Water dad was on about on New Year’s eve. Wouldn’t stop laughing until he gave himself a bellyache and was hallucinating about three-headed squirrels. Mum was furious.”

Lily shook her head. “Imagine how I felt, walking in Godric’s Hollow with all three of them in tow. People kept asking us of James and Harry were twins. I was sure there was a shopkeep who’d known Mr Potter for years and years congratulate him for finding his son’s long lost twin. It was maddening.”

James grinned as Euphemia fussed over the upturned collar of his hastily thrown on robes. “Bathilda Bagshot thinks I look better with you, though I thought I might have to hex her when she started spewing rubbish about how unnatural it is for Harry and Sirius to hold hands.”

“Don’t worry about her opinions, son,” Fleamont assured as he ruffled Harry’s and then Sirius’ hair. Sirius quickly ran his fingers through his locks to get them back into place. “Bathilda’s an old lady with archaic beliefs. Not a very progressive sort at all.”

Euphemia snorted as she kissed and fussed over Sirius this time, now quite done with fussing over her son. “We’ll be sure to tell her those opinions aren’t appreciated if she can’t keep them to herself.” She pulled Harry close and hugged him in that wonderful grandmotherly way that never failed to get him choked up in the two days he’d known her. “Off with the three of you now. Jamie, Sirius, don’t let me see another note from Minerva over your terrible behavior to Ms Evans.”

“Mum, you know I’ve been nothing but chivalrous to Lily,” James objected even as Lily snorted. “What, the lady doth protest too much, don’t you think, Pads? Harry?”

Sirius giggled and Harry had to suppress his own snort of amusement. “You’re on your own there, dad.”

Remus looked puzzled as he cast a quizzical stare at Lily. “Dad?”

“She knows, Moony,” Sirius assured. “Long story; tell you on the ride. Bye Mr and Mrs Potter!”

“No more adventures,” Fleamont said sternly. “That goes for all of you young people.”

James laughed as he helped Lily with her trunk. “No promises, dad!”

All of them piled into an empty compartment Sirius found unerringly (mostly by intimidating a second year Ravenclaw to scram out into another compartment.) Harry felt like he was the one having an out of body experience now, as he thought incongruously of how his last train ride from Hogwarts back to his awful existence with the Dursleys had gone. It had certainly been one of the last few moments of fun and camaraderie with his friends, as the next time he’d gone back to Hogwarts, they were smack in the middle of the war. The war where Ron and Hermione had died. The war where he’d met his own end.

Sirius was quick to spot his plummeting mood, tugging him close to tuck him by his side and pressing a kiss to his temple. James beamed proudly at the two of them over his bag of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans that he shared with everyone, as if he was solely responsible for how Harry and Sirius were utterly comfortable now in showing affection for each other openly when not less than six weeks ago, Harry had been filled with misgiving about dating this glossier, younger version of his godfather. Where just over two weeks ago, he’d been consumed with jealousy over his father’s closeness with his new boyfriend.

“Don’t you two look cute,” Remus smirked. “Had a fun time at Gryffindor tower without any of us around to keep the groping to PG-13?”

Lily giggled and even Harry had to snigger his amusement, especially at James, Sirius and Peter’s puzzled looks. “You should’ve seen them at James’ place. Mrs Potter had to constantly remind Sirius that there’d be no snogging involving tongue at the dinner table.”

“For shame,” Remus laughed. “I hope you two didn’t defile anything in our common areas in the tower.”

Harry and Sirius exchanged veiled, heated looks. “Er, you might want to wait until the house elves have thoroughly disinfected the spot of carpet in front of the fire. Sirius has a bit of an exhibitionist streak. We were lucky the handful of second and third years who stayed the hols didn’t get an eyeful that would scar them for life.”

“It was an adventure, and don’t say you didn’t like it either,” Sirius snorted. “‘Half the fun’s the threat of being caught, Pads.’” His mimicry of Harry’s deeper voice was so on point, James managed to inhale an Every Flavor Bean (Jalapeño flavored, which just made everything worse until his eyes were watering before the pounding Remus gave his back finally got the bean to go down the right pipe.)

“Fucking—Warn a bloke first, Pads,” James choked to raucous laughter between Remus and Lily.

Peter had a face that couldn’t seem to decide if he was wildly curious or extremely revolted. “Are you two really together?”

Sirius grabbed Harry’s hand and aggressively laced their fingers together. The smile he threw in Peter’s direction was just a little too sharp, more a baring of teeth than an actual smile. “Got a problem with that, Wormtail?”

Peter looked hurt. “I was just asking. Didn’t McGonagall told you to tone down the public displays of affection?”

“We’re not in public, though, are we?” Sirius snapped back, that goading, feral smile still on his face.

Harry tightened his fingers around Sirius’ hand. “It’s okay, love. Remember what Nan said? We don’t have to care about other people’s opinions if we don’t want to.”

Sirius scowled and was about to say something more when the compartment door slammed open. Regulus and Narcissa stood in the corridor, holding what appeared to be three fancily-wrapped scrolls. Narcissa handed one to Harry, Sirius and James with a snooty expression.

“What’s this?” Sirius demanded, tugging the black velvet ribbon off his scroll and unrolling it to read through.

“Invitations to Bellatrix’s wedding party,” Narcissa replied with a haughty sniff. “Potter, you’re to hand yours to your father. Grandfather wishes to speak with Lord Potter before the wedding. Something about meeting before the Wizengamot returns to session in the spring.”

Harry thought it was in extremely poor taste that the Lestrange wedding would push through so soon after the Blacks had just buried Bellatrix’s sister, but he supposed there was really nothing he quite understood about wizarding culture. Maybe the Blacks were simply trying to make the best of a bad time for their family by celebrating life instead of death, union instead of loss. The muggles he’d grown up with would certainly pooh-pooh at the rushed wedding but maybe among wizards, it was just customary to press on. Certainly, Bill and Fleur’s wedding in his timeline pressed on according to schedule, despite Greyback mauling Bill’s face. But then, that had been an un-transformed werewolf attack which Bill survived with not a few scars that made his handsome features appear more rugged, not a death in the family.

Regulus’ unpleasant expression told him he was probably reading too much into it. “Bella and Roddy planned it all, if you’re wondering why it seems unbelievably crass. I mean, you’ve seen how she was at Dromeda’s funeral—flashing all the jewels that her betrothed had gifted her during their courtship.” He wrinkled his pert nose and Harry couldn’t agree with the expression more. James looked like he had similar opinions of how appallingly insensitive the wedding appeared when Sirius’ horrified gasp hushed them all.

“Harry,” he said in a hushed voice. All of the teenagers in the compartment crowded around Sirius’ invite, which was addressed to _Heir Sirius Orion Black III_ in fancy calligraphy script.

Harry could feel his heart plummet to the pit of his stomach as he scanned the list of the wedding party sponsors. There, at the very bottom, after the names of Rodolphus Lestrange’s parents, was the name they’d all been dreading to see.

_Tom Marvolo Riddle, Lord Voldemort._

Narcissa gave Harry an icy nod, her pale blue eyes flashing. “Lucius would like a discussion before we attend, as Grandfather obviously wishes for you to partake. We have time yet for a wedding in March. We’ll be sure to let you know.”

Harry gave her a cautious nod. Behind him, Sirius, Remus, James and Lily exchanged terrified, trepidatious stares. It seemed a confrontation would be forced, and Harry, Sirius and James would all be in attendance, along with a large number of the Pureblood families that had been formerly aligned with the Dark Lord. After the disastrous events in the Crystal Cave, culminating in Harry’s own near death at Snape’s wand, they needed to plan if they were to make it out of that wedding party alive, and with as few casualties among the Pureblood families and children as possible.

Hidden in Harry’s left sleeve, Griselda the Grootslang put her tongue out tasting the heavy ominous scent of trepidation in the air among the gathered teenagers. “ _Smells like hunting season soon,”_ she told Harry quietly, and Harry had to agree. It appeared that before winter ended, he’d have to resume the hunt for Voldemort’s horcruxes if he was to be prepared for a confrontation in the Lestrange wedding.

* * *

It wasn’t that Peter was distancing himself from his friends. Certainly, there was a fair bit of excitement surrounding his friends these days. It was just that they all seemed a bit different these days and the changes were making Peter somewhat… less than comfortable with where he stood among his friends. On the surface, they all still seemed the same, but Peter was pretty sure there was something different, even if he couldn’t pinpoint with accuracy what it was with any of them lately that made him uneasy.

Remus was still a werewolf and, Peter was certain, needed the three other Marauders to keep him in check when they ran as animagus with him during the full moon. There’d been something different about Remus in the last few moons they’d been. Usually, when the the three animagi Marauderscame to get him from the Shrieking Shack, he’d be utterly savage and feral, attacking himself over and over before the wolf managed to sniff out the scent of his pack coming to let him out of his monthly prison.

Lately, Remus had been surprisingly docile when they came to get him, sitting patiently and quietly in the destroyed sitting room of the shack, his amber eyes keen, intelligent, instead of the rabid glow Peter had always associated with a transformed Remus. He would sniff at Padfoot as the massive black dog came to get him, Peter’s Wormtail perched on his head, and when they stepped out into the forest to meet with Prongs, the wolf would sniff again before following Prongs’ lead through the thick, heavy woods. There were no longer any accidents when the wolf was too frisky or unaware of its strength, and there seemed to be a whole lot more lighthearted romps in fields of wildflowers with Padfoot, or a lot of splashing in streams with Prongs, instead of hunting out the scent of small animals and mangling them bloody like Moony had always been wont to do before.

Stranger still was the fact that Remus no longer needed days and days of convalescing in the hospital wing to recover from the full moon. Perhaps the fact that the wolf wasn’t half as vicious as it had been before and no longer tore himself to shreds while he waited for the Marauders. But Peter was certain he also no longer seemed to be as exhausted or peaky like he used to be before and after the full moon. There was very little muscle aches from the pull of the moon, and Remus never had to skive on classes just to recover. Peter found it all very strange, but chalked it up mostly to Remus working out what was just probably adolescent hormones. Maybe werewolves went docile once they reached adulthood. Peter certainly didn’t know. After all, it had been James and Sirius who’d spent weeks researching werewolves back in second year, when they were trying to ascertain whether Remus was in fact one.

The changes in James were perhaps a bit more expected. James had always been utterly besotted with Lily Evans, and the fact that their redhead muggleborn classmate was finally giving him the time of day perhaps led to the sudden jump in maturity that the undisputed leader of the Marauders had recently been displaying. Since they came back from hols, James had mostly cleaned up his act. The pranks were fewer and further between, kept to harmless plays on classmates who were good sports about getting pranked. He spent more time with Evans in the common room, studying and discussing some experimental potion Evans was apparently working on with Patter, and since Peter had very little interest in Potions, a subject James logically took a great interest in given that his parents were both accomplished potioneers, and the Potter legacy was in both brewing potions, and inventing them. He’d also curiously stopped hexing Snivellus, who’d been on something of a permanent detention ever since they all came back from hols, a fact that James and Sirius curiously exulted on, despite them going out of their way to avoid the greasy-haired Slytherin.

The one that made Peter most wary though was Sirius. Peter wasn’t sure what it was that changed in their brash, loud, arrogant Pureblood friend. Sirius had always been the rash, irrational, jump-first-think-about-everything-later sort, but lately, he’d been a lot more measured, introspective and quiet, almost like he and Remus had a personality transplant. He still goaded James into planning elaborate pranks on occasion, but Sirius always seemed like he was busy with something lately, and that exactly, Peter knew, was what set his teeth on edge.

Sirius had been spending unholy amounts of time with that new boy, Harry Patter. It started, Peter was sure, when Patter became a sort of study partner with Sirius for that Curse-breaking elective no one wanted to take with him. They’d spent a number of study sessions and then, on one fine evening that Sirius had somehow fallen ill, perhaps even hexed by that strange Patter boy, the two of them started to hang out together so much they were practically attached at the hip!

Then came the declaration that Sirius was, in fact, gay, and that he and Patter were macking whenever they were together. Peter didn’t think it was right or natural for boys to be together romantically (where did things go during their intimate moments? Was it a wand fight as opposed to, well, whatever it was the men and women were supposed to be doing? Peter had a pretty good idea but as he’d never actually lain with a woman, he couldn’t be certain what such actions should be called) He didn’t really think he was in any position to begrudge Sirius whatever it was Sirius wanted to do in his free time, even though he was certain Sirius was probably causing some major crisis in his family all over again with him deciding to be with a boy instead of marrying off a girl once they finished school, but he just couldn’t understand why it was with Patter. Sure, Patter looked a rather unhealthy amount like James, and maybe Sirius had some sort of crush on James before he’d met Patter. But beyond that, Peter couldn’t tell what it was. Sirius was a Pureblood, like himself and James and a whole host of other better looking young men in Hogwarts. Patter was some half-blood of suspect ancestry, if Snivellus was to be believed. He wasn’t particularly good-looking despite the similarities in appearance with James—too thin, sort of haggard looking, like he was perpetually about to drop dead from a severe lack of sleep, and rather spotty dressing considering he’d been in Transfigured robes for a good part of their first week in school back in September. But worst, and perhaps most damning of all, Patter was a Slytherin. He was friends with all of those viciously bigoted Purebloods like Malfoy and Rosier. Hell, he seemed inordinately close to Narcissa and Regulus, both of whom Sirius had initially refused to do anything with when they’d all started school. He was their rival in Quidditch, and worst of all, he seemed to be embroiled in all of these strange and unfortunate happenings around the school.

First, there had been Sirius getting sick that one evening back in September. Kara Broadmoor in Hufflepuff had been in the hospital wing that evening for burning her hands with bubotuber pus during Herbology class and she’d gossiped to Barbara Deverill, a Gryffindor fifth year, that Patter had been the one to bring Sirius in, and Madam Pomfrey had been unable to wake Sirius at all, until Patter kissed him. Peter shuddered to think what sort of magical malady would require the kiss of some grotty Slytherin boy to heal them.

Then there was that whole incident with the Chamber of Secrets, and Patter killing Professor Croaker. Dumbledore had told the school that the Chamber of Secrets was sealed, but who knew if Patter could reopen it? Certainly, he had to have done so the first time, right? Who even knew the truth of whether Andromeda Black was actually killed by Professor Croaker, and not Patter? Patter may play it off that Croaker had been bewitched by You Know Who, but there’d been no one else to tell the tale, right? Peter certainly wasn’t going to the take the word of a highly agitated to the point of being Confunded Narcissa Black. And anyway, she and Patter were friends. Of course they’d corroborate each other’s stories.

All that was to say that whatever Sirius had gotten himself into with this boy was nothing short of dangerous and could really wind up getting him killed. And now, with his cousin’s wedding looming in the horizon, and Sirius back to being Heir Black and therefore _must_ attend the wedding… Peter felt a little sorry for his friend, but Sirius made his bed already with Patter. Now he should just lie in it.

Of course, feeling like there was nothing he could do to stop Siriusdidn’t mean that Peter didn’t indulge in a good spirited bout of gossip-mongering about his friend. He sat in the library among a fairly large new friend group he’d made over the start of the school year. James, Sirius and Remus had always been disappearing to god only knew where and Peter needed new friends who didn’t flake on him. Sure, his Marauder friends still spent time working on homework and such, but James was always busy with Lily, Sirius was always trying to climb into Patter’s pants, and Remus was simply too busy being a Prefect. Peter was entitled to keep other friends.

Kara Broadmoor brought her Ravenclaw boyfriend with her to study session today, though Peter was already done with most of his homework, having copied off Transfiguration from James, Charms and Potions from Sirius, and Care of Magical Creatures and DADA from Remus. He only had Divination left, and Sirius had dropped it this year in favor of Curse-breaking, which still didn’t have a substitute teacher and therefore was being taught by Dumbledore himself. He was being magnanimous to his new friends and allowing them to copy off his work (which really weren’t his; only the handwriting was) while he shuffled and reshuffled his tarot cards, thinking of a good topic for a New Year prediction that Professor Delphi wanted the sixth year divination class to take. Kara, Dorcas and Kara’s boyfriend, whom Peter knew was the shy, quiet son of the current Head of the DMLE, were looking over Peter’s copied Charms homework on non-verbal spells, its counters and uses.

“Peter, are you sure this is right?” Kara asked as she pointed out a comment Peter had copied from Sirius’ essay that potentially fatal curses cast non-verbally would have significantly reduced impact except for the use of Unforgivable Curses, as there was no in-between for these curses: either you truly wanted to hurt, control or kill the target, or you didn’t, and therefore the the spell would either work or won’t work.

“It’s right,” Peter muttered impatiently. Sirius was never wrong when it came to Charms. It was one of the reasons Peter tried to remain in Sirius’ good books. You just didn’t go wrong copying Sirius Black’s Charms homework.

“The Imperius curse can be broken though,” Barty, Kara’s boyfriend said softly. Peter didn’t like him very much, he was too shy, too timid, too quiet, and it was rather annoying, especially if you had powerful parents, like Barty’s dad, who practically owned the DMLE. “Assuming you cast the Curse non-verbally, wouldn’t the power of the spell be significantly weakened with how non-verbal casting results in weaker-powered spells? That’d make an Imperius curse easier to break, don’t you think?”

Dorcas rolled her eyes. “Who would even cast Unforgivables non-verbally? People who want to cast those curses relish in the fact that they’re making their target hurt. They’d probably yell the curse for all the world to hear about how much they hate their targets.”

“Aurors would have to learn to cast the Killing Curse non-verbally,” Barty said quietly. “I heard from my father that Aurors have been given authority to cast first and ask questions later.”

Dorcas snorted. “If they cast the Killing Curse, Barty, the ask questions later portion would no longer valid, since there’d be no one to ask questions of anymore.”

“Just copy whatever points you want to copy,” Peter said irritably. “I—I got most of my talking points from Sirius, and Sirius is never wrong when it comes to Charms.”

Barty looked a little hurt. “Black isn’t the be all and end all of Charms, you know.”

“He is, though,” Dorcas said in a besotted voice that irritated Peter to the core. She was supposed to be his girlfriend and here she was daydreaming about his poof of a friend as if Sirius would even waste a second glance on her. Sirius was so gay for Patter’s arse now it was a wonder he could even pull his head out of it enough to be aware of his surroundings. “He’s so dreamy! I know most of the Gryffindor girls are all about James, but there’s just something about all that bad-boy good looks and teen boy rebellion that makes him seem so delicious!”

Kara’s eyes sparkled. “Oh, I know what you mean! And all that Black family money and prestige isn’t a bad idea either. He’s like some dark prince in a romance novel.”

“He’s annoying and arrogant is what he is,” Barty muttered; Peter had to agree. Sirius really was a bit of that when one thought about him objectively. Without the rose-colored lenses of teenage girls dropping their knickers at the sight of him.

“He’s also supremely, unapologetically gay,” Peter pointed out. Dorcas and Kara ignored him.

Barty’s eyes were dark as he nodded. “Him and Patter running around like indecent faggots frolicking in the snow as if no one was watching. It’s a bit stomach-turning.”

Peter nodded emphatically. “You’re telling me. I have to sit with them half the time and Sirius is constantly climbing Patter like a tree. It’s awful!”

“I think they’re being rather romantic and brave for not caring about what other people say,” Dorcas said. “And you really shouldn’t say things about Sirius like that, Peter. He’s your friend!”

“If he keeps on this disgusting charade with Patter, he may not be for very long,” Peter muttered under his breath, and then shook his head. No, Sirius was definitely his friend and he wanted to remain friends with him, because being friends with Sirius meant Peter would go the distance after his years in Hogwarts. Sirius, like James, was a very good contact for a rewarding career after school. “Anyway, it isn’t Sirius I don’t like. It’s Patter. He’s a bad person! A terrible influence on Sirius.”

“Eh,” Kara said noncommittally, “Patter’s not too bad. He’s managed to rein Sirius in from his more aggressive pranks, you know. Barty and I stayed here during the hols, and you wouldn’t believe it unless you saw it, but Patter’s managed to convince Sirius to keep to pranking the people who liked being pranked, and only with the funny things. Sirius even left off harping after Snape, even though that greasy git never knows when a ceasefire has been called. What a jerk!”

“They were a bit strange though, during the hols,” Barty muttered. “They disappeared off to who knew where sometime after Christmas, and when they came back, Patter was all beaten up and bloodied like you wouldn’t believe. Madam Pomfrey confined them to the hospital wing for two days, before Mr Potter came round finally and then suddenly, Patter was somehow related to James and they were leaving with him.”

Peter nodded. “Sirius wouldn’t say where they’ve been, but I saw this note that Patter left in Gryffindor tower. It’s a bit torn up and you can’t see much of what else is listed, but I saw it in the common room. Look.” He procured the ripped up little note to show his new friends. Maybe, since Kara and Barty had seen Patter during the hols, they could tell him what Patter was on about, disappearing and going and nearly getting him and Sirius done in.

Kara and Dorcas glanced at the messily written note and scoffed.

“Doesn’t look like anything much more than gibberish,” Dorcas said, going back to her Charms homework.

Kara nodded. “I mean some of it seems to be related to legends surrounding the different Hogwarts Houses. Look at this? Ravenclaw’s diadem? Everyone knows it’s been lost and mostly now a thing of wizard fantasy that it can be found since it’s supposed to give the wearer unimaginable intellect.”

“I could really use some of that unimaginable intellect right about now,” Dorcas said wistfully. “These NEWT level classes aren’t kidding. They’re horrible and I barely have time to spell my hair curly in the morning before we all have to be in class!”

Kara snorted, but handed the piece of parchment back to Peter. “I think this is really just rot. Who even talks about the diadem these days? Pandora Pyrites and that weirdo, Xeno Lovegood, that’s who! Don’t they run around telling everyone all these funny conspiracy theories and invented creatures no one’s even heard of? They’re both absolute loons and made for each other. Look at this, Resurrection Stone? What, does this reference the Three Brothers fairy tale? Who even thinks that’s true?”

Barty bit his lip as he fingered the rip edge of the parchment. “It’s—Peter, can I have a copy of this? I—I think I might have a project about the Founders coming up for Magical Theory class. I know Professor Snicket would be interested. Antonin and I have been working on a paper for so long on this.”

Peter gestured a careless have-at-it to Barty, who expertly duplicated the parchment with a _Gemino_ charm.

“Thanks,” he said in his usual soft voice, although Peter thought he caught a strange gleam in his dark eyes. He stood and started gathering his books. “I’ll see you guys later. I should talk to Antonin about this.” He bent and kissed the top of his girlfriend’s head. “Bye, Kara.”

Dorcas stared after Barty long after he’d gone. “I really don’t know why you date him, Kara. He’s so _odd_.”

Kara snorted. “You would when your choices in Ravenclaw are Xeno Lovegood and crazy jewel obsessed Josiah Goldstein. I swear, that boy must be part-goblin. He’s so creepy!”

“Well, no one told you you had to date Ravenclaws exclusively, “Dorcas told her matter-of-factly. “Even if Sirius didn’t give you a second glance, there’s so many other boys around, you don’t have to confine yourself to those creepy Ravenclaw boys you love to date so much. I mean, at this juncture, even a Slytherin boy would be better.”

Kara sighed. “If that were true, Avery wouldn’t be such an arsehole after we dated in fourth year.”

“There’s no helping you, Kara,” Dorcas shook her head. She turned to Peter. “Pete, I really like you but I wish you’d stop harping on about Sirius dating that Patter boy. He’s not doing anything _bad_ , and if you really couldn’t stand seeing them being together because they’re both boys, I don’t know… just stop looking! No one’s forcing you to. And get back to your Divination homework! That prediction isn’t going to make itself, you know!”

Peter sighed and put away the scrap of note back into his book bag and resigned himself to writing his Divination homework without the help of any of his friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obviously, I don't believe in any of the extremely small-minded comments that Kara Broadmoor makes, comparing the Goldsteins, who are Jewish to the Gringotts goblins, and the slurs that Peter and Barty Crouch Jr hurl against Sirius and Harry. These are just some of the other ways people can be hurtful in universe, without being Pureblood supremacists. They're all forms of bigotry, and they're supremely offensive, but in the 70s, none of these would really have been all that out of place in regular conversation. I'm so glad we're in a slightly more enlightened day and age, where we no longer have to hear vitriol like this all the time, but I still think that the world we live in could go a long ways more to eradicate these types of harmless-seeming but ultimately very insidious beliefs of the _other-ness_ of people we perceive are not like us.
> 
> In in-fic-universe notes, I originally planned for Peter to knowingly betray his friends, but I thought this unknowing, petty jealousy fitted with the times better. We aren't dealing with a 20-year-old traitorous Peter who took the Dark Mark to save his skin in a war they appeared to be losing against Voldemort. This Peter is just a stupid, small-minded jealous boy who was deeply envious of his friends' happiness. The Antonin that Barty refers to is of course, Antonin Dolohov, whom I'm fairly certain I've written as a seventh year Slytherin in earlier chapters, and if I haven't, well. He appears in a later chapter too.


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long-winded Pureblood politics discussion that had me channeling GoT dialogue in writing this.

It had been weeks since they’d returned to Hogwarts. Harry hadn’t heard from Lucius or Narcissa in that time. In fact, nothing at all of significance had occurred save for Rosier reminding Harry that the Gryffindor-Slytherin match was coming up and that they needed to up their training hours. Lucinda was a stern taskmaster. She was convinced the team had a chance against Gryffindor, particularly since the mainstays that had won them the previous year’s Quidditch Cup were still mostly intact, save for their Keeper. Harry thought Rabastan Lestrange was a passable enough Keeper but he let in far too many goals, especially when Narcissa and Travers, both quick and vicious and tag-teamed in a point and wingman position very well and very tightly in the air, double-teamed on him. Harry had seen James practice drills with his team, even though his father had laughingly told him he wasn’t allowed to spy on their practices, and he knew James’ Chasers were just as vicious, just as well-coordinated as the Slytherin team, perhaps even more so given that they did flying-V formations with surprising coordination, protecting the point (usually James) from Beaters very well.

If Harry had been captain, he would’ve concentrated on plays to foil this strategy, along with working their Keeper to improve his reach (Rabastan was _tiny_ and protecting three goal hoops was a huge challenge for him), but Lucinda’s focus was on her Chasers, who hardly really needed any help coordinating her plays, given that Travers, Urquhart and Narcissa played like the three of them were in a mind-meld. He’d brought up the weakness of their Keeper once and Rabastan had viciously resisted any and all points of assistance Harry gave, so he’d left it alone. It wasn’t like he cared. He was just in it to play.

Beyond that, there’d been absolutely nothing of note. Returning to classes meant he saw less of Sirius, and that made him tetchy as he’d gotten used to the two of them sleeping together at night, but they shared a good number of classes anyway, and that would have to be enough. Harry knew there were students who didn’t look on their relationship too kindly and he didn’t want to invite that sort of controversy for Sirius, especially when Arcturus’ announcement of Sirius being Heir Black was still a huge talking point among the students.

He really rather wished he didn’t have to watch his actions around his boyfriend. Sirius certainly didn’t seem to give a rat’s arse on anyone’s opinions, but Harry couldn’t help thinking he was ruining Sirius by being with him. Didn’t help that he’d gotten a pretty stern talking to about public displays of affection again, this time from Slughorn. His Head of House was more than an obsequious annoyance now. Slughorn was constantly up his business after Fleamont revealed that he knew of Harry’s existence in the timeline. If Harry wasn’t so enamored with meeting his grandparents, he would have been disgruntled at this unintended consequence of now being under their care and he thought this was almost so much worse than how Slughorn had been in _his_ timeline. At least then, he’d been able to control his responses, since whatever Slughorn wanted from him had to do with him being him, that is The Boy Who Lived. Here, Slughorn wanted him as a meal ticket to ride on the coattails of Lord Potter, the owner of the single biggest potions empire in all of Britain. It was annoying and he wished Slughorn would focus on James instead, since James was Heir Potter, but apparently, the attention was all in good faith as certainly, someone in line to succession of being Lord Potter couldn’t _possibly_ be gay.

Harry was fairly certain by now that he wasn’t, he was just very very into his godfather, to the exclusion of literally everyone else. He remembered in his timeline how in sixth year, he’d found certain girls pretty, but had mostly just honed in on Ginny. His attraction to Sirius was just worlds worse than that. He was constantly thinking of him when he wasn’t agonizing about the remaining Horcruxes, or dreading the Lestrange Wedding in March, and as a consequence, he was also almost constantly hard. That made for awkward Quidditch practices, and hurried Silencing charms on his bed curtains when he went to bed in the Slytherin dorms every night followed by awkward mornings where Rosier would be smirking at him knowingly.

It was all just very strange.

Perhaps his one consolation between Slughorn’s brown-nosing, and his perpetual state of arousal around Sirius, was that Curse-breaking class had resumed, and it was taught by Dumbledore in the absence of a substitute teacher. Harry didn’t quite know what to make of the old Headmaster. On the one hand, Dumbledore wanted to trap him in Hogwarts to keep him from changing the timeline, and was likely none too pleased when Harry ripped a swath in the wards in that Apparition stunt he pulled after he and Sirius returned from the cave. He couldn’t really blame anyone but himself for the problem with the wards, but he just didn’t understand why Dumbledore was so adamant that everything that happened flowed the same. Didn’t he understand when Harry had tried to impress on him that practically everyone died, including himself, in the course of two wars spanning twenty years? Did Dumbledore really believe that Time shouldn’t be meddled with at the expense of countless lives that would be lost between 1977 and 1998? Harry didn’t get it, but he refrained from sharing his misgivings of the headmaster as James and Sirius weren’t particularly happy with Dumbledore after they’d both learned Harry’s timeline, so he kept mum on that. The good thing, though, was that Dumbledore was a superb instructor at Curse-breaking.

Harry had lost all of his memories of his adulthood, along with the over-powered magic. That now put him on a fairly level playing field with the other fifth, sixth and seventh year students he went to class with. It made for a more exciting, more challenging class, and Harry found himself actually engaged on an intellectual level, working with Sirius and Caradoc on various papers and projects. It made him feel accomplished, like there was actually a purpose to him even playing at being a student when he was supposed to be, well, old.

It helped that he wasn’t going to class with either Ron or Hermione anymore. His two friends were on the complete opposite ends of a spectrum where studying was concerned and Harry constantly vacillated between coasting on charm and his general aptitude for spells, and frantically cramming the sort of information Hermione took months to study and retain for exam periods. Harry now had an opportunity to shine and do well on his own, without using Hermione’s knowledge as a crutch, and without his unfair advantage of nineteen years of Auror and Unspeakable training against his classmates.

Caradoc found the level playing field puzzling at first. In the first term, Harry had done all the practical, leaving him and Sirius to handle the theory which Harry had no patience for. Now all three of them worked on everything together since Harry no longer had overpowered magic where he could just wish things into being. It amused Sirius endlessly that Harry now had to ask for his help in getting through breaking the curses on the artifacts they were assigned, and that made their relationship feel a lot more like they were on equal footing, rather than Sirius just relying on Harry’s long years of knowledge and experience, and Harry feeling like an old pervert taking advantage of a very young, very impressionable Sirius.

The one blot in this otherwise peaceful coexistence was the first day back in Curse-breaking class that week, almost a good three weeks into the year, when Dumbledore took exceptional note of Harry’s wand as they cast diagnostic spells to determine the curse wards on their current subject of study. In all the excitement that ensued from retrieving the locket from the cave, to meeting Fleamont, Euphemia and Henry, and then Henry bequeathing Harry Griselda, and Draco giving him the Elder Wand in his dreams, Harry had forgotten that the old headmaster was the previous master of the Elder Wand, before Draco had disarmed him, and Harry had bested Draco.

“That’s a most curious wand you’re using, Mr Patter,” had been Dumbledore’s opening, which had Harry stiffening in his seat. Sirius cast him a curious glance, not understanding the Headmaster’s interest, perhaps not remembering or noting in his vision of the future that Dumbledore had been the Wand’s master for a considerable length of time before it came into Harry’s possession.

Harry tried to think of a quick excuse to explain his possession of the wand but couldn’t find any. “Er, it was a gift, sir.”

Dumbledore nodded, but said no more. He did, however, pulled his wand out of his pocket and lay it on the table. It was also the Elder Wand. Harry’s eyes widened. If Dumbledore still had his wand, _where_ on earth did the one in his possession come from? Did Draco break open Dumbledore’s tomb in the future to steal the wand and give it to Harry? Did the presence of _two_ Elder Wands in the timeline mean anything?

Sirius stared long and hard at the two wands, but Harry shook his head firmly to warn him from making a scene.

At the end of that class, Dumbledore called on Harry again just as he and Sirius were slinking out of class. He looked utterly perturbed, though he tried to dampen his concern with a twinkle in his blue eyes.

“Mr Patter, it concerns me that you would use your Time Turner to obtain objects from the future and bring it to the present timeline,” he said quietly. Harry gripped his wand firmly in his pocket, afraid that he might be asked to turn it over. “I should not have to remind you that a great many unpleasant ends have been met by those who seek to meddle with Time, and I have to request that you keep that wand in utmost safety, for I fear the destruction it would wreak in the wrong hands.”

Harry frowned, not quite liking the veiled threat he was hearing. “Are you telling me I can’t use a wand that has obviously recognized me as its Master?”

Dumbledore wasn’t fazed at all. “The Elder Wand is no ordinary wand, Mr Patter. The swath of death and havoc that has followed its wake is no trifling matter. I seek only to protect you from elements who may recognize what a prize it is in your hands and seek your destruction.”

Harry shook his head. What was it that Malfoy had called him in that dream? The Master of Death. Even if the wand were taken from him, and that’s a huge _if_ , for he wasn’t stupid enough to leave himself vulnerable to be disarmed, the Wand ultimately recognized who was the owner, the keeper of the Hallows. He took his own wand out of his pocket and laid it on the table, next to the Elder Wand of 1978 in Dumbledore’s possession and watched, curiously as both wands vibrated and glowed for a brief moment.

Up his sleeve, Griselda hissed, “ _Speaker, Death’s hand calls.”_

The wands, both copies of them, flew into his grasp without him calling up a Summoning spell. Dumbledore stared, aghast. Behind Harry, Sirius smirked.

“I suppose, sir, the wand will always recognize its _true_ Master,” Harry said, plucking the one that had been in Dumbledore’s possession and handing it back to the headmaster.

Sirius stopped to snog him right outside the classroom. “You’re a fucking marvel is what you are, Harry Potter,” he whispered hotly, and Harry had to convince his body that rutting in the corridors was not a productive use of time, or in keeping with his desire to keep Sirius out of the inevitable intrigue if someone caught them kissing in public. They had that meeting with Lucius to get to.

He wasn’t sure what to expect when he and Sirius entered the Head Boy’s tiny office, but seeing it crammed to the gills with a who’s who in Pureblood circles wasn’t it. Nearly all of the fifth, sixth and seventh year boys from Slytherin were here, along with a good number of people from Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. Sirius was the lone Gryffindor until James came up running behind them, his hair windswept, and he was still wearing his Quidditch training robes. Harry counted all twenty-two of them in the room, making the small office horribly stuffy with so many bodies cramped in the small space.

Lucius waved his wand and uttered some spell that must be known only to the Head Boy and Head Girl, for Eaustacia Fawley, the Head Girl from Hufflepuff, nodded approvingly when the room expanded significantly and Hogwarts manifested dinky little chairs for each of them. Lucius sat behind the desk upfront, and Eustacia hitched herself on the desk, earning her a sharp glare from Narcissa, who huddled in a corner with Regulus. Harry made his way towards them, to Sirius and James’ exasperated sighs.

“Thank you, everyone for coming today,” Lucius greeted, as formal and clipped as he normally was. “You all know why we are here.”

Dolohov, who’d leaned against the door jamb looking utterly bored, rolled his eyes. “I don’t see why we need a campus meeting in order to attend a wedding, Malfoy. Unless you want us all to coordinate outfits?” He exchanged haughty smirks with Mulciber, Avery and Rowle, who all sniggered at Lucius’ prim smile.

“I don’t ever wish to coordinate outfits with disasters who haven’t learned the Anti-perspirant spell at seventeen,” Lucius said drily. “How you manage to impress anyone while smelling like a bridge troll is beyond me, Antonin. But no, the subject of your shabby dress robes which you’ll no doubt pull from the attic of some impoverished gentrified noble of a great uncle is not of any particularly great significance in our meeting today.”

Louder sniggers tittered across the room. Sirius cackled, along with Yaxley. Between him, Malfoy, Lestrange, James and the three Black cousins, they belonged to the upper crust of wizarding society, the richest of the rich. Harry didn’t quite understand or appreciate the way they all seemed to engage in a pissing match over who’s the richest, and wished Lucius would just get to the point.

Narcissa stood and glared at them all. “What Lucius is trying to say is that we’re all invited to my esteemed sister’s wedding, and you all know who else is invited along with us.”

Rabastan rolled his eyes. “What, you mean Patter? Yeah, I have to wonder myself how some half-blood nobody is invited to my brother’s wedding.”

“Patter’s invite is by the grace and entreaty of Lord Black, and you’d do well to recognize that, Rab,” Regulus replied, a touch snottily, “seeing as how it’s _your_ family petitioning to join ours.”

More posturing and a fair bit of yelling between Rabastan and Regulus ensued over whose family maintained primacy in the union, until Eustacia rapped her knuckles on the desk to gain everyone’s attention. “Alright, boys, no one’s interested in the politics of the wedding. That’s between Lord Black and Mr Lestrange, and really neither here nor there in this discussion.”

“We all just want to know why Voldemort is invited,” James cut in, impatient to get to the topic and hopefully get back to the Quidditch practice he’d obviously abandoned in favor of the meeting.

Quite a number of the attendees gasped at his casual mention of the name, and Harry had to roll his eyes. “Don’t tell me none of you bothered to read your invitations. Unless your scrolls were all delivered to mummy and daddy, and you’re just tag-alongs.”

Mulciber sneered at him as if he were a dunce. “You don’t use the Dark Lord’s name in any casual manner unless you’re inviting trouble, Patter.”

Harry glared back. “Dark Lord? More like half-blood poser. Or are you telling me you don’t _know_ your all-powerful lord whose robes you’ve been kissing is just like me? Just like every half-blood of suspect parentage that you’ve ever insulted and pranked in this school. At least I _know_ who my parents are. Your dark lord didn’t even find out who his were until well into his adulthood.”

Several of the Slytherin boys stood and drew their wands.

“Take that back, you filthy little mongrel!” Rabastan yelled, his fourteen-year-old voice cracking at a squeak that had Harry laughing as if they hadn’t just threatened him with bodily harm. Beside him, Sirius was fingering his wand dangerously, and James’ hazel eyes glinted in the bright light.

“Boys!” Eustacia cried over the shouted insults on Harry’s parentage and James and Sirius cracking their fists, raring for a fight. “We’ll get nowhere if you keep pissing on each other!”

“Honestly, the testosterone in this room makes it reek something unholy,” Heloise Greengrass said, her nose turned up in the air. Harry belatedly realized she had to be a cousin of James from Euphemia’s side, which meant he was also her second cousin. This meeting was turning out to be a who was related to whom among all the old families. “Malfoy, if you would kindly get on with it.”

Lucius sniffed his thanks for the girls who tried to maintain order. “As Narcissa said, seeing the Dark Lord’s name in the invitation brings us to a bit of a quandary. You would have all read the papers in the past several weeks. Lord Black has been consolidating power in the Ministry and intensifying the hunt for followers of the Dark Lord, believing him at fault for Andromeda’s death.”

“So says Patter,” Rabastan muttered snidely. Regulus actually shot out of his chair and would have thrown a punch if Sirius hadn’t managed to tug his brother away by the collar. The Black brothers exchanged unreadable looks and sat next to each other, crowding around James and Harry.

Narcissa’s icy glare was by far the most effective in silencing Rabastan’s outburst. “It’s not on Patter’s say-so but mine. _I_ was there too when Andromeda’s body was recovered, or have you forgotten, Lestrange? Shall I tell you how the Dark Lord then proceeded to possess Professor Croaker and attempted to murder me? He would have been successful had Patter not been there to foil his plans.” She turned to Lucius. “What would you have us do?”

Lucius nodded at his girlfriend. “What _I_ want to do is irrelevant. I want to know whether any of you will pose any trouble for anyone in this room when we meet and the Dark Lord’s presence is the spark that lights a wildfire during the wedding. I do not want to curse any of my schoolmates if I can help it.”

Dolohov, Mulciber, Rookwood and Lestrangeall stood, crowding in a corner near the exit. “We won’t cause _you_ trouble, Malfoy, if you don’t cause any to ours.”

Rabastan sneered. “I can’t promise the same to half-blood filth receiving pity invitations from Lord Black. I did not know the Blacks kowtowed to the rabble these days.” He spat.

This time it was Sirius who needed to be restrained. He looked murderous, and with his bulk and height over Rabastan, he would have beaten the boy to a bloody pulp if Harry and James hadn’t managed to hold him back.

“Have a care, little boy Lestrange,” Sirius said in a coldly lethal voice, “or your brother would find himself without a bride to wed, and _then_ where would your pretentious little wedding party be?”

Narcissa stood as well. “I do not take kindly to insinuations from a little boy who is not even the Heir to a House that is nowhere near the power, prestige or nobility as that of the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black.” She loomed over Rabastan, her bright hair a halo around her head and slim shoulders, making her look as if she had wings, like some sort of avenging angel. “You will apologize to Heir Black now worm, or you will face the consequences.”

Rabastan’s dark eyes flashed with hate. “Over my dead—“

Callisto Selwyn smirked, coming up behind him, her robe sleeves tugged up to show off lithe arms muscled tightly from playing Beater for the Hufflepuff Team. “That can be easily arranged. After all, you’re the _expendable_ second brother.” Harry wasn’t sure how she was related to Sirius, but she had the same bright blond hair as Narcissa, the same blue eyes. Beside her, Rosier grinned nastily.

“Perhaps a truce,” Barty Crouch Jr, who thus far hadn’t spoken, said smoothly. Rabastan glared at him, but Dolohov and Crouch nodded, and the boy very reluctant put his hand out.

Sirius stared down at him and scoffed. “I don’t shake hands with little boys who don’t know how to wash up after picking their noses like the little savage you are.”

James and Harry couldn’t stop the snicker that escaped their lips. Rabastan looked utterly affronted at being made fun of by a half-blood and a blood traitor.

“You will rue the day you made an enemy of a Lestrange, Black,” he muttered ominously, before shoving his way past Dolohov and Mulciber at the door and stomping away.

Dolohov watched him go for a moment before showing Lucius his teeth. “Well, I suppose you know where my family loyalties lie, Malfoy. I’ve never made that secret.” So saying, he walked out of the room, quickly followed by Mulciber and Rookwood.

Crouch sighed. “This could have been handled better. We are Purebloods and should stand with each other, not against. Half-blood traitors like Patter have no business being in our company. Let him wallow in his filth with the rest of the mudbloods who’ve stolen our birthright.”

Even with Harry's hand on Sirius shoulder, and James holding on to Sirius’ wrist, neither of them could stop the flash of red light that zipped from his wand, causing Crouch's head to shrink alarmingly on his neck. Sirius grinned cruelly as Yaxley and Travers, who’d been sitting next to Crouch, yelled as Crouch’s head shrank to about the size of a peanut and scrambled away from him, perhaps fearful that Sirius would turn his wand on them next.

“Let’s see you spout more of that hot air in your arse when your head’s devoid of all that helium,” Sirius snarled, sheathing his wand back up his sleeve.

Lucius pinched the bridge of his nose tiredly as Eustacia sighed angrily, dragging Crouch to his feet and shoving him out of the meeting room. “Finish this up, Malfoy, while I get this petty little idiot to the hospital wing. And Black? You’re as much an imbecile if you think you can get away with a hex like that in front of the Head Boy _and_ Head Girl. Ten points from Gryffindor. Potter, for Circe’s sake, rein your fucking dog in before anyone else gets hurt.”

James smirked at her and gave her a two-finger salute as she left, Crouch in tow, his voice having shrunk to tiny squeaks along with the shrinking of his head, even as he screamed in a comical voice that sounded suspiciously like cartoon chipmunks, " _You'll regret this, Patter! The Dark Lord knows exactly what you are up to and you_ will _be stopped!..._ "

Lucius shook his head wearily as he glanced around the room at the remaining attendees. “Now that we’re done with that unsavory business, whose families have sworn allegiance to Lord Black’s crusade?”

* * *

If Harry took any more time wondering about the allegiances or non-allegiance of of the Purebloods Lucius had gathered in the meeting, he wouldn’t have had enough time in the day to think about anything else at all. Sirius didn’t seem at all bothered that so many of the Pureblood heirs in the school had families who were still on the fence, though James saw it as a good thing. It meant that there was a chance for Arcturus and Fleamont, who apparently were now in correspondence to consolidate their alliances, were getting somewhere, and it had a wider impact outside of the school than in it. Where before, the papers were plastered with news of attacks and disappearances, now it seemed the Prophet headlines concentrated on arrests the DMLE have made against known Death Eaters and sympathizers of Voldemort’s cause.

Harry had to wonder how Voldemort himself could still walk Wizarding Britain with impunity given all the havoc and destruction attributed to his name, but James was quick to explain that just because all the terror were ascribed to his followers didn’t mean that he was directly responsible for them himself, and that meant the Aurors couldn’t just up and arrest him whenever he was seen in places like Knockturn Alley and other areas where Dark wizards liked to congregate. Harry thought that was fair stupid of his supporters if they all had to suffer for his goals while he went about all dandy-like with nary a concern for his most loyal followers, who were getting sent to Azkaban left and right. He had to wonder if people like Dolohov and Mulciber and Crouch ever realized that they were throwing their lives away for a cause that their vaunted Dark Lord cared nothing for, given that he made no effort to either secure the release of his incarcerated acolytes, nor did he fight his own damn battles. It frustrated him endlessly that so many people who appeared to be well-educated and well-reasoned, were just throwing their lives away for nothing and he voiced this concern to James and Sirius, explaining that this hadn’t been the case in his timeline. At least then, Voldemort had stood by his people. Now, it just seemed like he couldn’t give a rat’s arse, and it was troubling that there were still so many who believed in him.

“Nature of sheep, really,” Sirius told him flippantly. “You’ve to realize by now that while many wizards are learned and keenly intelligent with their magic, their understanding of reason and philosophy is spotty at best. All these people see is someone championing their cause against muggles and muggle sympathizers, and they go crazy for them.”

“A false messiah complex,” Lily explained while the four of them were gathered in Study Room 6, around the cauldron of what would be Remus’ fourth batch of Wolfsbane potion, now significantly improved by Lily. “You know about it, Harry, since I’m sure you studied Civics back in muggle primary school. It’s how muggles educate against the rise of populist fascists. Hogwarts really ought to improve on our History of Magic curriculum and focus on critical thinking rather than rote repetition of the dates of the Goblin Wars if we’re to prevent another Gellert Grindelwald from taking over.”

Harry exhaled noisily. “Just my luck having to keep dealing with Wizard Hitler in every fucking lifetime. It isn’t even like we’re actually muggle sympathizers so much as we recognize that we’re all really just people, muggle _or_ magical.”

James slapped a bracing arm on his back. “Cheer up, mate. Dad’s doing _some_ thing about it now, at least. And Padfoot’s granddad, too. We wouldn’t be in this position if you weren’t here.”

Lily nodded as she meticulously added the crushed moonstone into her cauldron. “Yeah. Think about it: if you hadn’t shown up, and somehow worked your way to meet Mr Black and Mr Potter, we’d still have a powder keg of bigotry powering a growing war machine that’s likely to explode any time soon. Because of you, we have a whole bunch of the hard-line Purebloods suddenly taking a more moderate stance to seek protection from a man who’s had no compunctions of killing their children.”

Sirius grinned wickedly, smacking moist lips against Harry’s cheek noisily. “My boyfriend’s an everyday hero.”

Lily laughed and rolled her eyes. “Christ, you two ought to get a room.”

“Don’t encourage them, Lily,” James cautioned. “You need to be protecting your son’s virtue before Padfoot defiles him before our very eyes.”

Sirius pointedly licked Harry’s cheek and grinned back at James. Harry scrubbed an exasperated hand at where he licked. He really wanted to take Lily’s advice, but shagging the night before a Quidditch match might not be the brightest idea he could have. James seemed to have arrived at the same conclusion and grinned back, suddenly all devious.

“On second thought, you have my blessing to defile my son any which way you prefer, Pads, as long as we win the game tomorrow.”

Harry snorted. Sirius needed to give him a bit of space or his trousers were going to get real messy soon. “You’d seriously sacrifice your Beater in the name of me not catching the Snitch?”

As if he’d read his mind, Sirius hastily pulled his arms away from where he’d twined them around his neck. “You may have a thought there, love. Prongs, this castling move of yours will not work. You shouldn’t be allowed to trade off players like that when you’re horrible at Wizard’s Chess.”

Harry sighed and resigned himself to blue balls the day before the match. At least this way, he could channel the aggression of a missed orgasm into flying like the devil set fire to his broom. The best he could hope for really was that he could fly a game with minimal blood flow to his head… the top one, not the one in his pants.

The day of the match was sordid. There was a snowstorm brewing in the horizon and the winds were blowing high and freezing cold as Harry zipped in the air at a much higher altitude than the rest of the players. The Gryffindor Seeker, who Harry was surprised to realize was Marlene McKinnon, dogged him persistently as he hunted for the Snitch.

They’d been in the air for close to four hours now and the game below had devolved into an absolute blood bath. Pureblood politics had spilled bad blood among the Slytherin players and Lucinda was having a hard time controlling Rosier and Narcissa, both of whom wanted nothing to do with Rabastan to the point where Rosier ignored Bludgers that strayed near their Keeper. Narcissa, who usually had her eyes all over the pitch to yell saves when the Chasers couldn’t steal the Quaffle had stopped doing so when Rabastan shrieked for her to mind her own fucking business and make her own goals. Travers, whose family politics leaned more towards supporting Voldemort without outright declaring their support refused to wingman Narcissa in her goals, and Urquhart was torn as to which Chaser to support. Meanwhile, James and the Prewett twins, who played Chasers for Gryffindor completely slaughtered Rabastan at the hoops, pelting him with savagely hurled Quaffles that, with his skinny, short limbs, he had no hope of saving. It didn’t help that Sirius had nearly fouled out the game by aiming his Bludgers at the Slytherin Keeper, instead of using them to get the Chasers offtrack.

“Patter, get the fucking Snitch and just end our misery here!” Narcissa screamed as she spiraled away from the Quaffle save that Rabastan hurled in her direction, nearly knocking her out of her broom if she hadn’t maneuvered quickly enough. Urquhart caught it and sped towards the other side of the pitch.

They were sorely beaten out. James and the Prewetts have scored a massive two hundred and seventy point lead on them, and not even catching the Snitch was going to give them any hope of a win. At this point, Harry catching the Snitch would just be a consolation of him ending the match at his own terms. He wondered if this was how Victor Krum had felt in the Quidditch World Cup match against Ireland back in his fourth year.

“Patter!” Lucinda cried as Sirius sent another heavily swung Bludger in Rabastan’s direction. Rabastan managed to twist away, but at the expense of another goal, this time made by Gideon Prewett.

Harry swiveled his eyes around the pitch. In the horizon, the heavy clouds of the snowstorm gathered fierce and thunderous. His strength was flagging for how long they’d all been up in the air. His Warming Charm had long since faded and it felt like his legs were going to lose all feeling soon, and still there was no sign of the Snitch. If he didn’t find it soon, they would be playing the match in the middle of a blizzard, and there was every likelihood that as Seekers generally flying away from the rest of the game, he and Marlene would be completely blown out of the pitch.

He sighed and made to turn away when he caught sight of it. There, zipping innocently near the Teachers’ Stands, the Snitch glistened the cold air like a mirage. Harry hazarded a glance behind him. Marlene hadn’t yet spotted the Snitch, but she was bound to see it soon. He needed a distraction and she wasn’t watching the rout of a game below at all, certain of her team’s win whether or not she caught the Snitch. He wasn’t going to risk it anyway.

He feinted left and as expected, Marlene followed his lead, flattening herself against her broom to weather the bracing wind. Harry spiral-dove closer to where the other players were dogfighting for the Quaffle. Sirius spotted him and grinned deviously as he and the other Gryffindor Beater, Trinity Lynn, tag-teamed on getting Harry away from his path towards the Snitch. Wary that Marlene may have spotted it as well by now, Harry sloth-rolled first away from Lynn’s Bludger, his momentum faltering only by the tiniest bit, before he was then zipping a Wollongong Shimmy between her, Sirius and the Hawkshead formation James had moving across the pitch. Marlene was about thirty feet behind him now, caught in the crossfire of Bludgers between Sirius and Lynn, Rosier and Lucinda, who’d belatedly come to Harry’s rescue after realizing that he’d spotted the Snitch, and Harry swooped down on his broom and grabbed the little twittering ball of gold, right next to McGonagall’s ear.

Finally, the game was over and they could all get indoors. He wasn’t looking forward to the locker room screaming coming from Lucinda at all, but at least he would be warm and not freezing his bollocks off in a snowstorm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right now, I'm Team Lucius in the Pureblood politics arena. He does the best ad hominems I've ever managed to write, though I could probably build a kink library for all of Narcissa's utterly badass lines.
> 
> Also, notice the difference in Harry's dialogue from the start of this fic to now. In the past two chapters, he's stopped talking like an adult and reverted back to a teenager. I hope I've managed to convey that convincingly with the way he savages Voldemort in the Pureblood discussion.
> 
> And I just _had_ to write a Quidditch game. I think if I actually had any talent in writing, the types of scenes I do very well in no particular order are: fight scenes, torture/horror scenes, sports scenes, porn. These types of scenes have nothing to do with each other but I seem to have a knack for them, so if you see Quidditch up here and Gryffindor snagging the victory... well, you can be sure the porn is coming up next lmao.
> 
> If the updates come too fast too soon, it's because it's a holiday in my country; I didn't find out until today, and now I suddenly have a ton of time on my hands to devote to writing this fic that has absolutely enslaved me for the past 2 weeks. We're on the home stretch though; give me a week tops and I'll wrap this monster up very very soon! I'd like to find out what sleep actually feels like where I'm not plagued by ideas for this story.
> 
> Lastly, if you were curious, the list of attendees in Lucius' coordinating-dress-robes meeting and their family allegiances as I wrote in my notes for this story:  
> Invited:  
> Leon Avery - on the fence  
> Evan Rosier - against Voldemort  
> Rabastan Lestrange - for Voldemort  
> Thorfinn Rowle - on the fence  
> Antonin Dolohov - for Voldemort  
> Geoffrey Mulciber - for Voldemort  
> Walden Macnair - against Voldemort  
> Narcissa Black - against Voldemort  
> Regulus Black - against Voldemort  
> Sirius Black - against Voldemort  
> Harry Potter - against Voldemort  
> James Potter - against Voldemort  
> Barty Crouch Jr - for Voldemort  
> Lucius Malfoy - against Voldemort  
> Edgar Travers - on the fence  
> Augustus Rookwood - for Voldemort  
> Corban Yaxley - on the fence  
> Callisto Selwyn - on the fence  
> Fabian & Gideon Prewett - against Voldemort  
> Eustacia Fawley - against Voldemort  
> Heloise Greengrass - on the fence


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally part of a much larger chapter, but the plot and action coming up might overshadow this little piece of heaven, so have at 4000 words of pure unadulterated gratuitous porn in the purplest fucking prose I could manage instead.

Harry’s ears were still ringing with how shrill Lucinda’s shrieking over their spectacular loss on the pitch. The Slytherin changing rooms had devolved into a full scale brawl, Narcissa storming into the boys’ changing room, foregoing the use of her wand, and straight up punching Rabastan for costing them the game. Travers was quick to joined the fray and tried to hex Narcissa away from the fourth year boy, but Rosier, seething over how Travers abandoned Narcissa in her plays for the Quaffle cast a Knee Reversal Hex that had Travers lumbering in an ungainly stance and falling all over Urquhart who then swooped in, swinging at all combatants. Harry didn’t want a fist fight so soon after a bone-melting four hour game, but he didn’t want Narcissa to get hurt, and after Rabastan caught him in a scalping hex intended to shear off all of Narcissa’s glorious blond hair, the gloves were off, and Harry had very little patience left.

That was how Lucinda, realizing belatedly that Narcissa had not joined her in the girls’ changing rooms, found them: Harry bald and swinging furiously at Rabastan, Narcissa viciously ripping Travers’ hair off with her bare hands, as he tried in vain to wriggle out of her unyielding grasp, Urquhart and Rosier slugging at each other blindly. For some reason, Lucius was hot on Lucinda’s heels, probably expecting a fight with the way Narcissa’s wrath had cast a pall on the losing Slytherin team as they left the pitch.

Between the captain and the Head Boy, they Stunned and Body-Bound all the players. The changing rooms were completely trashed, from where Harry lay unmoving on the tiles. He could feel the tender swell of a black eye blossoming on the right side of his face, and at least another gigantic bruise swelling in his jaw, where Travers’ elbow had connected violently against the side of his neck as he tried to dislodge Narcissa, who’d leapt onto his back to brawl against the much larger boy. If he wasn’t among the five lying on the cold tiles now, with his face swollen, his hair gone and what felt like a massive contusion in his stomach from a Stinging Hex from Rabastan’s wand, he might have been impressed at the way six teenagers could completely destroy a room.

“This is an absolute disgrace!” Lucinda screamed once Lucius had finished Stunning them all. “All of you are a complete embarrassment, not just to this game but to this sport!” She fumed silently for a moment, seemingly struck completely speechless by the carnage wrought on top of the team’s resounding loss. She exhaled loudly, throwing down her gloves and bat. “You seem to be of the opinion that the loss we _all_ experienced is personal. It’s _not_. We _all_ lost, and that’s the fault of the team, not by one person. Now, Malfoy is going to release each of you and you _will_ talk one by one to tell me what in Salazar’s balls happened here before I get Slughorn and Madam Hooch and have all of you written up for a Quidditch ban for the rest of your miserable Hogwarts career!”

Lucius, in true Slytherin favoritism fashion, released his bind on Narcissa first. She slumped on the floor, leaning against one of the remaining locker room benches that Rosier and Urquhart’s slugging match hadn’t managed yet to destroy. Her normally neat golden ponytail was in disarray and a small cut in the corner of her lips leaked a tiny droplet of blood, but otherwise she appeared unharmed. Her cheeks blazed with mortification.

“I hit Lestrange.” Her voice was soft, hoarse from screaming on the pitch. “Everyone started fighting after that.”

Lucius started down at her in disbelief for a moment, before gathering her up in his arms. “And you’re unhurt?”

Leaning against one of the dented lockers, his body completely immobile, Rabastan rolled his eyes. Lucinda sighed and worked on releasing each of them from their body bind as Lucius completely lost his focus on anyone else but Narcissa as he tenderly healed the cut on her lips. She had to cast a _Renervate_ on Travers as he was completely knocked out after Lucius had Stunned him.

“And Patter? Rosier? How did the two of you get into this?”

“Travers was going to hex her,” Rosier muttered sullenly. “She’s my cousin and she’s a fucking girl. You don’t hex girls.”

“Didn’t know you were one of the chivalrous ones,” Rabastan said snidely, rubbing the right side of his body, which hadn’t at all been hit by any of the punches thrown but most likely still smarting from the Bludgers or vicious Quaffles from the Gryffindor team.

“You don’t hit my cousin if you value your life, worm,” Rosier snarled, half-rising from where he crouched on the floor as if to start hitting Rabastan all over again.

“Shut up, Rosier,” Lucinda snapped, then turned to Harry, a smirk unconsciously playing up her mouth as she stared at his bald head and his swelling black eye. “And you, Patter? You don’t strike me as anyone who’d get into a pissing fight with our ridiculous Sacred Twenty-Eight offspring here.”

Harry touched tender fingers to his swollen jaw. He could taste blood in his mouth. He’d evidently bitten his tongue, likely when Lucius had Body-Bound him. “Travers and Rabastan were going to hurt her, not with their wands.” He gestured at Narcissa. “You don’t attack women like that.”

Lucinda rolled her eyes. “Another knight in shining armor. Cissa, you really need to reign in your champions before Patter and Rosier murder the rest of our team in their sleep.” She turned to Lucius. “Lucius, are we writing this up to Hooch and Slughorn? I’m of the mind to just have everyone banned from Quidditch entirely if this what happens when we lose a game!”

Lucius ran adoring fingers through his girlfriend’s hair, smoothing out the tangles, even as Narcissa glared sullenly at the floor. He sighed. “Between you and me, can we heal the damage these idiots have inflicted on themselves?”

“Merlin’s fucking saggy bollocks!” Lucinda harrumphed, but got down to work. “Patter, I’m terribly sorry about your hair, but there’s nothing I can do there for you. Maybe Sluggy has something for you, otherwise, seeing as you’re friends with Potter, I’m fairly certain his father manufactures hair growth potions along with Sleekeazy.”

Harry pulled himself to his feet, running a hand on his scalp. Already, he could feel his hair prickling through smooth skin, as if the Potter hair just couldn’t be repressed from being its usual, messy bird’s nest. He just wanted to shower and forget about the whole game and stew in his anger in bed for the rest of the day. “Yeah, whatever. Malfoy, get Narcissa to the hospital wing, and you had better keep Lestrange away from the rest of us, if any of you value his continued breathing.”

That was how Harry came out of the changing rooms, all his muscles aching, the hot water doing little to improve circulation in his tired limbs. Lucius had seen to his black eye, and Lucinda had done her best for his dislocated jaw. All the same, he still felt like he’d been utterly trampled by a stampeding herd of erumpents. Rosier tried to wait for him, but Harry waved him away when he came out of the showers. He could handle himself if Rabastan and his goons were still around.

He very nearly ended up eating his words when, on his way back to the dungeons, he was grabbed from the back by what initially appeared to be thin air. He couldn’t keep the scowl from his face as Sirius slipped off James’ Invisibility Cloak from his head and started guffawing loudly at the sight of his half-grown hair which felt like spiky stubble on his head. Sirius was freshly showered, his black hair curling damply around his neck, making his robes stick to his back with the drip of water from his hair. He looked a fair bit like a drowned god, his grey eyes sparkling with mischief, lips pink and pouty and fucking gorgeous. It made Harry irrationally angry that he could look no less than perfect even when he was tired after a long game, but then that should not have surprised him, since Gryffindor won, and Sirius, along with James, was probably the House hero.

“What the hell happened to you?”

Harry scuffed his shoes into the stone floor. “Fight in the Slytherin changing rooms.”

“And someone hexed your hair off?” Sirius laughed merrily, eyes twinkling as Harry flushed uncomfortably. He knew he looked ridiculous, with his hair cropped less than half an inch on his head as it did its best to grow back without his prompting. Sirius’ grin widened even more, and he threw his arms around him. “I think you’re still the hottest thing on two legs here, and since you’re also the hotshot that ended the game for everyone, the Gryffindor Team extends our invite to you for a party at the Gryffindor Tower.”

Harry wanted to say no, but Sirius drew him close, flush against his chest, and pinning him against the wall as he whispered into his ear, “We’ll skip the party and have a private one in the dorms. Prongs, Moony and Wormy would be too busy drinking their weight in alcohol in the common room at the moment.”

Even if he wanted to say no, his prick had a completely different idea, one which Sirius obviously got the message, loud and clear, if the lascivious glint in his eyes were any indication as he threw the Cloak over Harry’s head, winking saucily as the fabric caught for a bit on the spiky stubble on his head. The two of them snuck into Gryffindor Tower, where the party was in full swing with James standing on a couch in the middle of the room, arm in arm with Fabian and Gideon, the other two Chasers who’d brought about their resounding win, each hand occupied with the neck of a Firewhiskey bottle as the Gryffindors hailed them with a drinking song.Harry was gratified to see that even though Lily was swiping apprehensively at the obviously illegal bottles of alcohol in James’ hands, she was laughing, dancing and singing along with Marlene and Remus.

Sirius ushered him quietly into the sixth year dorms, making sure Peter, whom they hadn’t seen at the party, was no where in sight, before slipping the Cloak off of them, and grinning madly at Harry and shoving him in the direction of his bed. “Locking spell, I think.”

Harry grappled with his wand, shooting a _Colloportus_ at the door before allowing himself to fall into Sirius’ bed with a quiet “oof!” Sirius hurriedly divested himself of his robes, leaving it in a crumpled pile of black crushed velvet and climbed over Harry in only his pants. He tugged the bed curtains shut and spelled them closed and Silenced, grinning mischievously.

“Can’t be too sure with Prongs. He’ll be drunk by the time he and Moony and Wormtail stagger in, but they’ll not let that deter them from crashing in when the alcohol’s turned their brains to mush.” Harry had to agree. He wasn’t keen on letting his father catch him in a compromising position with his godfather and his father’s best friend.

Sirius was an expert at undoing robe clasps and jean flies, and before long, both of them were kissing hotly, while their underwear-clad erections rutted amid tangled naked limbs, and heat and sweat building and mingling. “You’re so fucking hot,” Sirius mumbled, clamping his plush lips over the rapid thump of Harry’s jumping pulse in his neck.

Harry let his hands roam over the smooth hairless skin of Sirius’ chest, his fingers catching on and toying with his nipples they were rosy and erect from overstimulation, until Sirius was writhing and moaning above him. As with all the times they’d been intimate over the Christmas hols, Sirius was wonderfully responsive to every minute stimulus, shivering as Harry moved his lips from Sirius’ temple down to his throat, eyelashes fluttering as Harry turned them over so he was on top and grinding down into his groin, luscious moans spilling from his lips when Harry kissed his way down from his smooth neck, to his collarbone to his nipples.

Sirius had shaved after his shower following the game, and it was as if every part of his body had been spelled hairless except for the fine dark hair in his armpits and the neatly trimmed happy trail that disappeared into the waistband of his tight, black pants, tented and damp where his prick threatened to peek out of the fabric. Harry bit down at his sternum as he dipped his hands beneath Sirius’ pants to press and fondle at the round globes of his arse.

“Fuck,” Sirius whimpered, his legs falling open as he held himself by his elbows to watch as Harry trailed his tongue down, down the flat, quivering muscles of his stomach to snag over the waistband of his pants. “You’re so fucking—“

Whatever he’d been about to say was immediate forgotten as Harry slowly, but purposefully tugged his pants down. His prick, flushed and pink and impossibly hard bobbed against his stomach before Harry caught it with hands that had already learned and mapped out all of his erogenous zones, and pumped slowly, up and down, watching Sirius’ slack face, the way the pupils of his eyes seemed to swallow the grey as he fell back into the pillows, moaning incoherently.

Harry pulled his glasses off, not wanting the corners of the glass and metal to dig into sensitive places as he grinned down at Sirius. “This what you had in mind?”

Sirius whimpered as he flicked his thumb over the head of his cock, catching a pearl of pre-come beading out of the slit. He smiled wider. Sirius was almost completely taken over by sensation by this point and he was sure all he needed were a few more pulls and Sirius would be coming, and he couldn’t have that just yet.

Looming over his supine body, he shoved his nose at Sirius’ neck and bit, drawing a sharp cry and causing Sirius’ cock in his hand to jump violently, purpling at how much the move obviously turned him on.

“You want to come like this?” he demanded when there was still no answer forthcoming. Sirius whimpered some more and thrashed as he tightened his fist around his cock and sped up his strokes.

“I—“ a sharp puff of breath exploded out of Sirius’ mouth as his hips moved in time with Harry’s strokes. “Harry—oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck—“

He knew that was the moment he’d hit the peak of Sirius’ pleasure as Sirius’ body pulled taut, muscles straining, and he swooped down to replace his hand with his mouth the moment Sirius’ come exploded out of his cock. The splash of salty come was a strange flavor on his tongue and he had to work at swallowing and breathing through his nose so he didn’t choke. He wasn’t able to swallow it all and quite a bit leaked out of the corners of his lips; Sirius evidently had never heard of a spank bank and didn’t pull off as often as Harry did as he seemed to come forever before he finally sagged down into the sheets, utterly and completely spent.

Harry let him bask in the afterglow only for a moment, before he pulled off his cock and licked the spilled remnants of release around his groin, pressing his face into the thatch of warm pubic hair and committing this very personal part of Sirius into every dark and unexplored corner of his mind. He had to suppress a sly grin as Sirius let out a contented sigh before licking and sucking again, his tongue trailing down Sirius’ softening cock, down to the wrinkled darkened skin of his bollocks. He swirled his tongue around the damp, salty skin, pulling one then the other warm sac into his mouth, smirking as Sirius moaned in overstimulation, before positioning a finger lower still, to the hidden bud of his opening.

He still didn’t know the incantation for cleaning and protection spells, but even with his magic no longer overpowered, he knew enough wandless magic to gather his core and _push_ his intent through that single point of contact. Sirius’ eyes snapped open, his mouth forming an O before he let out a long moan, his hips arching up involuntarily, even as his legs thrashed.

“Fuck, Harry—give me a moment—“

Harry wasn’t going to give him a moment as he trailed his tongue down, pressing against his perineum, his hands gathering Sirius’ quaking legs and pushing them up, away from his face as he clamped his mouth shut to suck on the tender skin of his opening.

“Aah, fuck, what’re you—“

His protests died on his lips as Harry nibbled around delicate skin and pushed his spit in with his tongue, relishing in the way that Sirius fluttered, tense and excited around the slick muscle. His hole quivered as Harry’s finger joined his tongue, breaching him open, finger questing, tongue tasting the clean musky scent of him. Harry could feel saliva pooling and trailing down his chin as he licked and pushed his tongue into Sirius, fucking saliva into his hole to smooth the passage for his finger with his tongue. He knew he’d struck gold when Sirius bucked and keened, his head thrown back, hair a dark halo around his beautiful, slack face.

“Fuuuck, Harry, that’s—god, just fuck me already!”

Harry looked up from where he’d eaten Sirius’ hole assiduously. He could feel his face a mess with come and saliva. He had to smile at the picture Sirius painted below him, his limbs were shaking so hard, it was a wonder the bed wasn’t shaking along with him. His cock, spent and gone soft not a few moments before was once again hard and flushed and ready for action, his mouth open and panting desire and pleasure and overstimulation, his eyes dark and wild and consumed with lust.

As lubrication spells went, Harry didn’t feel the need to do it wandless, for the Elder Wand adored conquest in any manner or form, be it in a duel or in the throes of passion. He barely needed to utter an incantation, the wand shimmering magic from his hand into Sirius’ opening, flooding him with slick. Harry tossed the wand away, its purpose accomplished and set about to stretching that lovely, tight hole, curling his fingers every now end then to press against Sirius’ prostate, reveling in the way his body shuddered and his breath quickened, his eyes glazed over, and his cock jumped.

Sirius was impatient for more action, slapping his hand away at just two fingers in, pulling him close and ripping his pants off and shoving himself onto his cock. His mouth leaked a small scream as Harry pushed through the initial resistance, feeling the ring of muscle clamp around him, vise-like and unyielding, before shivering and giving way as he pushed inexorably home.

Sirius’ eyes, gone shut from the flare of discomfort at the initial intrusion, fluttered open, moist and shining with unbridled adoration as he looked up at Harry, stars in his eyes and heart in his throat. “God, I love you.”

Harry pressed forward, pushing his knees to his chest as he thrust that last inch further until he was fully sheathed, heat and tightness and unimaginable pleasure radiating from that core central point where they were joined. _No_ , he didn’t say, though he knew his eyes fairly screamed it back to Sirius, _you’re the god_.

“Sirius—“ he said instead, choked and impassion as he leaned forward and touched his mouth to his lover’s in an act more sublime than worship, more divine than magic. Sirius _was_ magic and Harry was the vessel that channeled that magnificence into being. He didn’t know how it happened, only that it did: every time they made love, it was a glorious act, surpassing every known magic and mysticism that ever existed. It was why he couldn’t stop, couldn’t let him go, couldn’t stop touching him and feeling him and reveling and exulting in everything that was Sirius Black as it surrounded and bound him, a slave to sensation.

Sirius’ body was beautifully responsive to his dutiful worship, bucking into the sharp thrusts of Harry’s hips to meet him halfway, moaning at every deep push, neck arching when Harry moved to kiss and lick, body lifting off the bed when curious hands explored the young, hairless mold of his chest. He sighed when tender fingers touched his nipples and whimpered when an eager mouth laved lavish attention on each tiny peak until they glistened moist and rosy and erect on his flushed chest. Every single touch, every kiss seemed to make his body arch, his cock jump, his mouth spilled sighs of wonder and helpless moans of delight. Harry couldn’t get enough of him.

“I love you,” Sirius whispered again, and Harry swallowed the words, ravenous for everything this beautiful man had to offer. Objectively, he knew as he moved that the pleasure building was greater in him as it swelled heavy and erotic, with every push and shove and grunt and rut. Sirius moaned and shifted and accepted him into his body, over and over, his hands flying up to the headboard to grip the wood to prevent his head from hitting it as Harry fucked him hard and relentless into the sheets. It didn’t take long before the measured strokes and hard pushes dissolved into utter incoherence as the both of them strained to reach their peak.

Sirius, his body overstimulated beyond belief, caved first, his body tightening, his legs clamping around Harry, strong muscles honed by long hours of playing Quidditch, quivering against his sides, his orgasm exploding out of him more powerful and long-drawn out than the one that nearly shattered him before. This time he broke, and he fell into his climax spectacularly, eyes shut tightly, mouth open in a silent scream, cock hard and red and straining, before exploding untouched, come shooting up his stomach and chest and chin, hole spasming around Harry, so tight and exquisite, it felt like a hundred tiny deaths, like pleasure so profound it bordered on pain.

And it roared out of him, a blinding, scintillating rush of sensation. For a moment he felt weightless, formless and utterly without being until Sirius’ heat and tightness reformed him again, putting all the fractured pieces of him back together as he bucked and rutted his climax into him. And as the pleasure soared and peaked and crested, he felt his hair grow lush and wild from its roots in his scalp as Sirius released the headboard and caressed the wild curling strands, smiling, lax and utterly spent, as Harry collapsed on top of him.

When he could finally feel the edges and sharp corners of himself once again, he pulled out gently, drawing a sharp hiss from Sirius, and then lay on his side, cradling his lover against his chest and pressing a kiss to Sirius’ sweaty temple.

“You’re fucking unbelievable,” he croaked out when he’d caught his breath.

Sirius toyed with a long curling lock of his newly grown hair between two teasing fingers and chuckled quietly to himself. “ _I_ ’m unbelievable? You grow your hair all magical and amazing when you came. And what do you call that part where you had a go at me after I came, like some sort of undomesticated animal?”

Harry hummed and let his head fall back against Sirius’ pillows. “I suppose that was called eating your arse out to within an inch of your life. Don’t complain, love. I know you enjoyed it.”

“Mm, that I did.”

Harry found the Elder Wand again and cast a cleaning spell at them as they settled into each other. Sirius seemed to delight in his new hair as he couldn’t stop himself from touching it.

“You’re not going to look exactly like James anymore,” he murmured as Harry let his eyes drift closed. He could still hear the party in full swing outside. There was every chance they’d keep on into the wee hours of the morning. Harry didn’t really care.

He sighed and tightened his arms around Sirius. “Yeah, I suppose that’s the point of it.”

Sirius chuckled darkly, shifting and settling comfortably into the little spoon. “I really like it.”

Harry would have snorted his amusement, but he was already floating in dreams of pale skin and dark hair, grey eyes that shone silvery and magical like the moon that bathed the darkened Gryffindor tower dorm room in its shadowy light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Basically, I'm convinced Sirius has little to no refractory period, but they're teenagers. (Shows you what I know of the human body.)


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know what, I'm done rewriting this part. I've rewritten the whole chapter three times, and it needs to fly like the misshapen bird it is.

He awoke suddenly, at some unnamed hour before the grey dawn arrived. The snowstorm of the previous day had already blown itself out. His body felt heavy and relaxed, he didn’t want to leave the safety and warmth of Sirius’ bed, but something tugged at him and reminded him that time was running short. They had little more than the three weeks of February left before the Lestrange wedding, and he still hadn’t made any progress on the remaining two Horcruxes.

As he lay there, reveling in the feel of Sirius’ warm body next to his, he tried to mentally calculate which horcrux would be easier to find. The Gaunt Ring, he knew, would be hidden deep in Voldemort’s own territory. The Gaunt Shack was his ancestral home, even if he’d never lived there, and Harry had to believe it would be protected more jealously than any other horcrux location, given that Little Hangleton was where he hailed his roots to the family that connected him to Salazar Slytherin. Harry had little information to go on about what to expect in the Gaunt Shack. All he knew was that the ring had been protected with a curse, something that mimicked the necrotic effects of some obscure snake venom. He didn’t know whether the shack was protected by similar types of destructive magics like he’d seen at the cave, though he supposed it would not be far-fetched to imagine that there would be a near-lethal level of difficulty in getting to the ring from there.

He certainly wasn’t looking forward to getting back to Little Hangleton any time soon. The last time he’d been there, Cedric had died. Harry knew logically he wouldn’t have Voldemort’s homunculus and Wormtail waiting to take his blood there, but he wasn’t keen for a reprise of the events of that horrible graveyard. Still, the Gaunt Shack at least was a known hiding place for him.

He thought the Cup was a wild card. During his time, it had been in Bellatrix Lestrange’s vault in Gringotts. But in 1978, Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange weren’t married yet, so there was no vault for her in the Lestrange name as of yet. There wouldn’t be, at least until the wedding in March, and there was every likelihood that the wedding would be catastrophic, with how Arcturus was manipulating the Ministry into pressing an offensive on Voldemort’s sympathizers. The fact that the Blacks were working with one of their longest political rivals, the Potters, was just icing on the cake. That wedding was going to be a powder keg.

On the other hand, Harry had the absurd idea that if Voldemort was going to be at the wedding, that the Hufflepuff Cup would somehow figure into the ceremony. There had to be some magical wine-drinking part of a magical wedding that would call for the use of a goblet as precious and mystical as Helga Hufflepuff’s cup, and Harry figured Voldemort’s flair for drama would probably have him using his jealously guarded Horcrux to bind two of his most ardent followers to each other and to him. Maybe that would be the time that Voldemort would even entrust the Cup to Bellatrix. That probably had to be struck out. If the Cup was at the wedding, then there was no way Harry was going to get to it before then.

That left the ring.

In his timeline, he knew, from Snape’s and Dumbledore’s recollections, and the ease with which they were able to retrieve the Horcruxes from their original hiding places, that Voldemort never bothered to move them, so Harry figured the ring most definitely would still be hidden in the Gaunt Shack. And since no one else knew about it, what it was, where to find it, it most definitely fell on him to retrieve and destroy it before Voldemort thought to change things up and reorder his hiding places.

Harry looked down at Sirius’ sleeping face, lax and beautiful, without a care in the world. His lips were lush and inviting, even when he wasn’t being devious and seductive. He wanted to press his mouth to those lips and ravage him while he was still asleep. But if he was to get away from Sirius, if he was to leave and not have him traipsing after him into danger, he couldn’t risk waking him up, even for a tiny goodbye-wish-me-luck kiss.

Because he couldn’t draw Sirius in danger the way he had when he’d allowed him to accompany him to the cave. That had nearly done them both in and Harry was not going to risk his boyfriend having a single hair of his body harmed ever again.

Sirius must have been more tired than that time they’d gone to the cave for he didn’t wake when Harry slowly disentangled himself, and slipped out of bed. It was a bit of an effort to try to find his clothes in the darkness, but he managed to get dressed as soundlessly as he possibly could, find his glasses and his wand, and then slowly tiptoed out of the room, before thinking quickly and grabbing James’ Invisibility Cloak where Sirius had left it on the floor with his robes. There were other little puddles of clothing near the other beds where a drunken Moony, Wormtail and Prongs had probably just shrugged out of their day robes and dropped straight into bed. Harry tried not to think too hard over the fact that he could see _two_ sets of robes on the floor next to James’ bed. Any thought of his parents romancing each other probably wasn’t healthy.

He was nearly out of the dorm when he saw motion coming from the bed closest to the window. The curtains parted and Remus emerged in his pajamas, sniffing the air for a moment and smiling when he spotted Harry.

“I _knew_ you were with Padfoot when he didn’t show at the party,” he whispered as he grabbed his dressing gown. For a boy who’d spent the previous night carousing, Remus looked surprisingly clear-eyed in the grey not-quite-morning. “Nice hair, by the way. I wouldn’t have figured you going for that sort of look given the gravity-defying properties of Potter hair.”

He frowned when he noticed Harry holding the Cloak. “Where are you going?”

“Sshh!” Harry hissed, and motioned for Remus to step out into the common room, where they could talk without any danger of waking James or Sirius.

Remus followed him, for some reason donning his robes instead of a dressing gown. The common room was only slightly brighter than the dorms, thanks to the fire that still roared merrily even though the common room was empty. Remus’ amber eyes seemed to glow accusingly as he watch Harry shift and squirm.

“You’re sneaking out again, aren’t you?” he whispered, grabbing Harry’s arm. His touch felt strange, like he was overheated and Harry belated realized that the full moon was only a day away, no, the coming night in fact. That would explain Remus’ heightened senses, his overheated skin. He flushed when he wondered if Remus could smell Sirius on him.

“I can, you know,” Remus told him, grinning wolfishly. “The moment I stepped into the room, I could smell exactly what the two of you were up to. Probably contributed to the sleepless night, besides Prongs and Lily going at it until just before you woke.” He smirked. “I’d be jealous if I wasn’t… you know.”

Harry sighed. “Remus, there’s nothing wrong with you, you know.”

“Right, I turn into a savage, mindless murder machine once every month and there’s nothing wrong with me.” Remus rolled his eyes. “Save your breath on that rhetoric, Harry. Prongs, Padfoot and Wormy have spent years trying to convince me otherwise. And anyway, this isn’t about that. I know you’re sneaking out; don’t try to convince me otherwise on that either.”

“Yeah? Then best for you to get back to bed, right?” Harry snorted when Remus only grinned at him. “You _know_ how dangerous the places I’ve been going to have been. Sirius told you about the cave.”

Remus’ eyes blazed. “Yeah. And that’s why I’m going with you.”

Harry balked. “No, you’re not. Remus, this shit isn’t child’s play! Sirius nearly _died_ in the cave, and I’m not letting you do that too!”

“All the more reason for you to take me,” Remus retorted. “If you and Sirius nearly died during the solstice, then stands to reason if you go alone now, you’d most definitely be dead, yeah? You think I wanna sit here and wait for my best friend to wake up for me to tell him I let his boyfriend go alone? What about James, then? Or Lily? Were you maybe expecting me to tell them that I let their son run off to danger without so much as a by your leave?” He folded his arms across his lanky chest. “You’re not going anywhere without me, Harry. I get that you don’t want to put Sirius and James in any more danger than they’ve already had to face with you, but _you_ don’t get to face that danger alone either.”

“Remus—“

“Save your energy for where we’re about to go,” Remus advised him, grabbing his arm and ushering him out of the common room. “I’m going with you, or I’m going back in there to wake James and Sirius, and then there’s going to be no adventure of any sort.”

“This isn’t an adventure!” Harry insisted, but Remus was already walking him down the steps from Gryffindor Tower and towards the secret passage that led to the Honeydukes store room.

“I know that,” Remus said quietly. “And I still won’t let you do this alone.”

Harry sighed and capitulated. If he didn’t take Remus with him, he’d just wake James or Sirius and they’d alert Dumbledore, or worse, Fleamont. His grandfather would never let him handle these things on his own. There’d be a whole production about his quest, and all the dawdling might just alert Voldemort to his plans. And the thing was, he needed to do them. He didn’t want anyone else he loved put in the sort of danger the horcrux hunt placed him in. He’d already done that to Ron and Hermione. He wasn’t doing it to all of the wonderful, amazing people here in this timeline, all these warm souls who loved and cherished him even though the only thing he brought to them was danger and heartache.

“Wait,” Harry hissed as the reached the steps that would lead down to the dungeons. “I need to get my snake.”

Remus waited for him outside the Slytherin common room as he found Griselda lounging on the warming stone he kept in a small aquarium by his bedside. None of the Slytherin boys had been surprised when he’d brought a new familiar into their dorm, though Snape, who hadn’t said another word to him since he’d nearly killed Harry in the Astronomy Tower, had pulled a face at the sight of Griselda and the mice she’d hunted while Harry was away in class or Quidditch practice and games.

Gris greeted him lazily and he ushered her up his arm, slithering to hide under his sleeve to take refuge in the warmth of his skin. Harry made sure no one in the Slytherin dorms saw him leave, using the Invisibility Cloak to hide his tracks. He had hoped to lose Remus as he sneaked out of the dungeons, but Remus’ senses were incredibly heightened this close to the full moon, and he found Harry unerringly, pulling the Cloak up to get himself tucked under, hidden, as they stole away into the night.

Breaking out of Honeydukes took a bit of effort. Remus didn’t want to break any of the locks, knowing that it would leave a trail for others to follow them, especially when Sirius woke find Harry gone. Harry waited for him impatiently, but evidently, as the one Marauder with any muggle ties, Remus had some skill with picking locks the muggle way, and it took him about fifteen minutes, before the two of them were standing in the bracing early morning air of Hogsmeade.

“Where are we going?” Remus demanded once they rounded a corner where no one would be able to see them Apparate.

Harry grasped his arm, long and gangly and thin and riddled with scars from all of the previous full moons he’d had to weather without the Wolfsbane potion or his animagus friends to help him take the aggression out of the wolf.

“Town called Little Hangleton. It’s where the Gaunt family lived before Voldemort murdered them to get the family heirlooms to turn into a horcrux.”

Remus exhaled. “Fuck, that’s harsh. You know where it is? ‘Cause, actually, I’ve lived there for a bit. Mum and Dad moved us around a lot before I got into Hogwarts. Said it kept the locals from finding out about me.”

“Fuck,” Harry muttered. “That’s awful.”

Remus shrugged as if to say “it is what it is,” and grasped Harry’s arm tightly, steeling himself for the disorienting suction of Apparition. They landed near the top of the hill, in the graveyard, the spot that Harry remembered the most, the spot where some of his most chilling childhood memories had turned into a waking nightmare. He doubled over for a bit, the memory of Cedric’s cold, lifeless body propped up against a nameless headstone too visceral to withstand in the bracing wind.

“You alright?”

He nodded, though his eyes watered as he struggled to swallow the bile down his throat. One thing all the memory loss from his adulthood that made everything worse was the fact that all his memories of the war felt so much closer to the surface. Sometimes, like now, they were so vivid, he could smell the stench of death as Wormtail made the unholy potion that resurrected Voldemort’s body, feel the excruciating torture of the Cruciatus Curse Voldemort had put him under, hear the cold high hiss of Voldemort calling his Death Eaters, the dread he’d felt when he realized that a good number of them were parents of his classmates, as if it were all happening right this very moment.

“Yeah,” he choked out, mastering his rebelling stomach enough to turn away and keep his eyes to the open gates of the graveyard.

“I take it some shit thing happened here?”

He shook his head. How did he tell this Remus that one of his best friends murdered Harry’s classmate and used his blood to resurrect the Dark Lord at the very spot where they’d Apparated into? No, he’d already told himself the Peter from his timeline wasn’t the Peter that existed now. He wasn’t going to destroy Remus’ friendship with him if he didn’t have to. And Peter hadn’t really done anything to warrant the destruction of that friendship.

“Let’s just go,” he muttered.

The walk from the graveyard to the outskirts of the town helped him get his head screwed back on right. Little Hangleton was a small town centered around a large manor house situated on top of a hill right in the middle of the town. The church steeple and the graveyard were in the east of the main part of town. There was a main road leading to a small strip of shops, what looked like a primary school, and a row of smaller, more modern bungalows dotting a wide expanse of the valley below the hill, and further down the valley, a barn with a ranch attached, where the lord of the town probably stabled his horses. It all looked so quaint, rather kitsch, as if the sort of thing one might see in a postcard. He could hardly believe that this place was in populous, ordinary, perfectly muggle Surrey.

The sun hadn’t risen, but the sky was grey anyway, a sign of a dreary, overcast morning to come. The air was damp, as if it had just rained, or was about to. Harry hoped there would be no sleet, given how cold the dawn air was. Remus followed him as he walked aimlessly for a moment, sniffing the air occasionally, though he tried to do it in a very discreet manner. Griselda, curious at the new location, poked her head up the neck of Harry’s robes and tasted the air. The had to stop behind a large telephone pole for Harry to cast a quick _Point Me_ to find the Shack. Evidently, even though Remus had lived in Little Hangleton for a time, even he didn’t know of the Shack’s existence, though he’d told Harry that in the few months they’d lived there, Remus had always detected a funny scent, had a funny feeling, whenever he’d ventured too far into the great wooded expanse to the west of the town, where his spell told him the Gaunt Shack was located.

“ _Something smells different_ ,” Griselda hissed. Harry nodded morosely. He knew what it was. A horcrux would smell funny to a magical snake too. And even without his overpowered magic to let him feel the evil emanating from the Shack as they neared, he could feel it still, like the air had suddenly gone sticky, humid and staticky in spite of the cold air. It was deeply uncomfortable and made the thick long sleeved shirt he wore under his robes stick to the skin of his back, as if his clothes would suffocate him.

“I can smell the wards in that place,” Remus said quietly, nodding his head in the direction of the Shack.

The wooded area that bordered the town in the west were comprised of thick gnarled old deciduous trees. In the dead of winter in kitschy, picturesque Little Hangleton, the forest was an eyesore, as the trees lost their leaves and looked dark, and heavy and dead. The trees looked parched of moisture, the heavy barren branches hanging low, dark and forbidding, partially obscuring the slanted, shoddy-shingled roof of the Gaunt Shack, half-hidden behind heavy branches. Harry imagined that during spring, summer and autumn, the Shack would barely be visible, and only the intense feeling of foreboding indicated that there was something magical in this area.

“I’ve never seen this place before,” Remus breathed as they spotted the shack. Even from ten paces away, they could see the body of the dead snake nailed to the door. Voldemort hadn’t even bothered to clean that out. “Smells like death.”

“Probably because that place _is_ death,” Harry answered, thinking about the disfigured Marvolo and Morfin, who’d lived and met their end there at the hands of their last living relative. “Come on, this place is warded to the teeth with all manner of serpent-themed curses and magic. We’re going to have to move slowly; disarm the wards before we move forward.”

Remus nodded. “Yeah, I can point them out to you and you can trip or disarm them?”

Harry stared hard and tried to will his vision to map out the magic Voldemort had laid over the place. For a moment, he thought he could see where the strongest of it shimmered and fairly reeked of the stench of his Dark spells, but then he realized he was just giving himself a headache. Remus would be able to smell the wards, or Gris would, and they could warn him about where it was safe to tread.

“ _In the roots, Speaker,_ ” Gris hissed into his ear.

Harry stared down at the tangle of roots from the massive trees that half-obscured the shack from view from the main street. To his naked eye, he could see nothing, but he’d felt magic curling out of the earth, pricking his skin with an uncomfortable moist sort of heat, the feeling of cold sweat trickling down his back.

“Boomslang,” Remus told him, pointing at a tiny bit of movement half-obscured by the shadows cast by a giant gnarled root jutting out of the dirt.

Harry nodded. “I see it.” He bent down, finding the snake as it slithered out of its hiding place. “ _Hello.”_

 _“A speaker!”_ The boomslang seemed excited. “ _Have you come to release me of my bond, Speaker?”_

Harry frowned and looked down at Griselda questioningly. His little snake curled out of her hiding place and poised to smell the boomslang by twining at the tip of Harry’s hand.

“ _My Speaker_ _is not your master, little one,_ ” Gris hissed back. “ _But he will try to help you be released if you help him with a task.”_

The boomslang curled out of the root, slithering its tongue in the air between it and Harry, as if tasting the flavor of displaced air around him. “ _I will help your Speaker, cousin from the sands.”_ The boomslang twisted its body in the air for a moment before hissing again. _“Speaker, you have another monster with you. Just as powerful as my cousin in your sleeve, maybe more.”_

 _“The werewolf is not your concern, little one,”_ Harry answered, looking back at Remus, whose eyes glowed yellow gold in the grey hazy gloom.

The boomslang was a bit dubious but as it had already agreed to help, it slithered a path free of trapped wards through the tangle of roots on the ground leading up to the door of the shack. “ _My master keeps a larger serpent inside. She does not speak. Master has cut off her tongue.”_

 _“Your master is a savage,”_ Gris told the boomslang.

“We need to keep the locals from waking in case things got to shit,” Harry muttered. Remus nodded. They’d both gone to Ancient Runes this year, and a base rune traced in the air at the front of the shack was enough to anchor a Muggle-repelling charm in case whatever noises they made in the house get loud enough to shatter the cold dawn.

“Harry, the door’s warded,” Remus warned as Harry pulled out the Elder Wand. He sniffed closer to the door and pulled out his own wand. “If we…” He didn’t stop to finish what he had to say as he slashed the air in front of the door and snapped, “ _Reducto!”_

The door exploded in, whatever wards on it splintering with the rotted wood. A noxious green smoke hissed up in the air, the release of the spirit of the dead snake nailed to the door dissipating in the early morning dew. Harry barely had time to put up a Shield Spell before a massive albino python dropped from whatever beam it had been hanging from inside the house. The snake was blinded, its eye sockets hollowed out, its dried blood forming a strange runic pattern over its head as it opened its gaping maws, ready to strike down the infidels that dared break into its master’s abode.

“ _Expulso!”_ Harry yelled, throwing the snake further into the house, just as Remus cried out another Reductor Curse. The snake disintegrated, blood and guts and snakeskin splattering the two of them, cold and slimy and noxious as the smell that wafted from inside the shack.

“Yuck,” Remus grunted, waving his wand to _Scourgify_ the two of them of the snake’s remains.

Griselda slithered out from where she hid under Harry’s sleeve. “ _That’s not her—“_

She didn’t get to finish whatever she’d been about to say as an even more massive snake with granite black eyes and a frightening rattle tail slithered out of the house with alarming speed, poised to bite and and spread its venom. There was no tongue in its huge, distended mouth, only a moribund pink stump.

“ _Confringo!”_ Harry yelled, and the explosive blast of the spell seared out from the Elder Wand, straight into the snake’s mouth.

To Harry’s astonishment, the snake swallowed the spell, its massive body quaking with the aftershocks of the explosion, its tail rattling louder, more ominously.

“Fuck!” Remus cried as the scrambled back. “ _Expulso!”_ The spell, explosive with the albino python, only succeeded in shoving the snake several feet away.

“ _Immobulus! Diffindo!_ _Confringo! Sectumsempra! ”_ The snake ate all of the curses they aimed at it.

“ _The Wand, Speaker!”_ Gris cried, gripping onto Harry’s arm vise-like and frightened.

Harry gripped the Elder Wand’s handle and let its destructive magic fill him. When he opened his mouth, the spell that poured forth was in Parseltongue, not Latin. “ _Avada Kedavra!”_

The snake tried to swallow the spell, but this time, it zoomed into its mouth, green and deadly and dissipated into black rot on its gaping pink insides. Harry and Remus watched in petrified horror as the Parseltongue Killing Curse consumed the snake in slow, methodical fashion, like a necrotic rot, shriveling its body from the inside out, eating into whatever dark magic had conjured its immunity to regular spells, until finally, there was nothing inside to eat, and its massive skin collapsed and deflated, an empty husk.

“Fuck,” Remus breathed, his voice shaky as he scrambled close to check that Harry had not been bitten. His amber eyes glowed, steady and molten as he stared at Harry in a sort of terrified awe. “What was that spell?”

Harry shook his head and kept his eyes lowered, trying to swallow the bubbling urge in his suddenly dry throat to laugh insanely at the shudder of dark thrill that bolted through his spine. He didn’t want to think about the fact that he’d just cast the Killing Curse, and it had been successful in ways he never thought possible. The snake before them now was nothing but a desiccated husk. Even its leathery hide had been eaten by the rot. The air tingled with the faint smell of ozone, though it was quickly overpowered by the disgusting smell of filth and death emanating from the shack.

Harry stood from where he’d tripped backward on a root and fallen. “Come on.”

Inside, the shack smelled of old death, as if the bodies of its previous inhabitants had never been cleared away. Harry suspected they might not have, and he was proven right as he and Remus came upon the misshapen skeleton of Marvolo Gaunt. There was still the tiniest bit of rotting flesh lingering between the small bones of his abnormally shaped hands, and maggots feasted, fat and numerous, on the rotting flesh. Remus pressed his sleeve to his nose, retching, unable to countenance the sight of the dead body.

Harry cast a Vanishing Spell, and the body disappeared, but the stench of death pervaded the shack. It would be impossible to get it out. The house had seen far too much death for far too long. He didn’t want to spend a moment longer in this murder house, so he hunted for the creaky floorboard that he knew hid the box that stored the ring.

“Here!” Remus called after him, smelling the magic that wafted from the ring, probably, and they used another Vanishing spell to rip out the floorboard and make it disappear.

The box was small and golden, shining in the meager light that poured into the shack, utterly incongruous with the layers of dust and filth that covered the house. Harry Levitated it out from where it lay, afraid that the box was warded. He looked askance at Remus who sniffed with intent.

“It doesn’t—“ He stopped speaking and grabbed the box suddenly, prying it open. His eyes blazed and his tongue lolled out of his mouth. His freckles stood stark against his pale skin as the box open and a blaze of ultraviolet light exploded out, then engulfing his face in a putrid-smelling green gas that dissipated as he sneezed.

“Remus!” Harry cried, unable to help as the gas enveloped Remus’ entire being, inhaled into his body, and his eyes dilated and his body started to shake. Harry could see the capillaries around his eyes pulse and started to break. Blood trickled out of his nose, leaked out of the corner of his lips, and then finally, his amber eyes dimmed and started crying tears of blood. His skin seemed to bloom a bright flush that turned deadly as blood started to seep out of his pores, dripping down his chin and seeping into his robes. “ _Gris, what’s happening to him?!”_

Griselda slithered out of Harry’s grasp and snaked her way up Remus’ leg and torso. She reared back for a moment, her tongue out to taste his blood, and then she sank her fangs into his cheek. Harry watched, horrified as the bleeding slowed but did not stop. More blood started pouring out of every orifice in his face—his eyes, his nose, his mouth, his ears. The healing poison of Griselda’s bite could only stave off so much of the deadly Exsanguination Spell that guarded the box.

“ _Tell the monster to shift!”_ the boomslang cried from behind Harry. “ _His monster can heal him!”_

Harry grabbed Remus by the shoulders. His robes were wet with the blood forcing its way out of every pore on his body. He could smell the tangy sanguine iron-rust smell of it overpowering the stench of death in the shack.

“Remus! You need to shift! Shift into your wolf form!”

Remus’ eyes swiveled to look at Harry, horrible and bloody and red. “I c-c-can’t-t-t-t!” he stuttered, helpless as blood gushed out of his mouth from the tastebuds in his tongue. It wasn’t the full moon. It was bloody day time and the full moon wouldn’t rise until hours and hours from then when night fell, and Remus didn’t have hours to live if he was pouring his life blood from every orifice.

“You can!” Harry yelled, terror-stricken and transfixed by the blood that poured forth. “You have to!”

Remus tried to shake his head but the movement seemed to invite only further blood loss. Griselda sank her fangs even deeper, the gold in her scales paling to a dimmed yellow as she tried to use all of her own innate magic to stave off the spell.

“ _The stick, speaker!”_ the boomslang hissed.

Harry let Remus go, his hands wet with his blood, and gripped the Elder Wand. _Please_! he thought silently at the wand. _Please help him!_

He opened his mouth and let the Wand’s otherworldly magic fill his veins. When he spoke it was not Latin or English or even Parseltongue.

“ _Na'ah'ehye r'luh hup mgepogg ot ymg' orr'e!”_

The guttural language was something he’d never heard before, but it tugged in that cold center of his core where resided the magic that Draco had breathed into his mouth all those weeks ago when he’d seen him in that empty platform at that blank white King’s Cross, and pulsed out of the tip of the wand in a light-swallowing black light that hit Remus square in the chest. Remus opened his mouth and _howled_ as he looked at Harry, something like betrayal shining in his eyes, nearly fully dimmed as he stood at the threshold of Death. Harry watched, transfixed, as the dimmed amber blazed back into gold shining in the gloom of the shack, his teeth, perfect and straight and blood stained elongating, lengthening, sharpening. He watched as his body contorted, bones cracking and reshaping, remaking itself into an entirely new form.

He’d seen Remus in the throes of his transformation before, when Harry was in his third year. That had been from a distance as Padfoot led the rabid werewolf away from Snape, Harry, Ron and Hermione. Up close now, it was even more blood-curdling to see, as Remus’ friendly, open face elongated and contorted, his nose flattening into his skull as his face elongated into a snout. His robes ripped as muscle rippled under his skin and his form crouched low into all fours. Tawny brown and white fur sprouted from his skin, reddening and darkening as his blood made contact, but it seemed the bleeding had slowed, his eyes no longer bloodshot, his nose pink with the shine of health, twitching as he smelled his own blood, baring long, angry fanged teeth, ready to rip into soft, delicious human flesh, and he stopped bleeding completely once his transformation was complete. Griselda retracted her fangs from where she hung at his massive, powerful neck.

The wolf gazed back at Harry, yellow gold eyes awash with a feral sort of intellect as it smelled blood. Harry scrambled back, terrified the wolf would pounce and attack him, but Remus only reared back on his haunches, snarling, and then opening his massive mouth and howling into the brightening morning.

“ _He is saved!”_ the boomslang cried happily as Griselda slithered away and climbed back to Harry’s arm. Harry didn’t want to rejoice too soon, knowing how werewolves attacked humans. But was Remus a werewolf now?

The golden eyes that turned on him when the wolf sensed his movement were keen and intelligent, nothing of the mindless creature of death and destruction that Harry knew of werewolves.

“Remus?” The wolf snorted and snarled, pawing at the filthy floorboards of the shack. “You’re—can you understand me?”

More snorting. The wolf moved one massive paw to lay on Harry’s chest, and then it opened its mouth and licked, one playful long stripe from the bloodied front of his robes to the tip of his left temple.

“Okay,” Harry gasped. “Okay, I—I guess you can—er, can you turn back?”

The wolf opened its massive mouth and yawned. Harry scrambled back some more, afraid that he’d miscalculated, but the golden eyes kept on him, still aware, still intelligent. The wolf whined, loud and plaintive as if in mourning.

“You—you can’t?” More whining. Harry felt tears prickle his eyes. “Can’t you—I don’t know, will yourself into it?”

The wolf shoved him back until he was flat on the floor, and then it heaved its massive bulk over him, flattening him into the filth. Its eyes were large and luminous, keen. And then it blinked. Harry blinked back.

“ _I can’t_ ,” he thought he heard, but the sounds that accompanied the words were distinctly animal, distinctly canine, distinctly wild.

Fuck. He fumbled with his wand, pleading with the Elder Wand for the same magic to turn his father’s best friend back into his human form, but no amount of wand-waving or reaching deep into his magical core would call forth the same eldritch magic that had pulled from the depths of his being to save his friend from certain death.

Remus the wolf sighed, a gust of doggy breath washing over Harry’s tear-streaked face.

“ _The treasure, Speaker,”_ Griselda reminded him. She sounded ancient and weary and Harry felt a frisson of fear as the golden scales on her body had dimmed to a muddy yellow.

“R-right,” Harry stuttered and Remus—or Moony—snorted, pulling back his paw and nosing at Harry’s feet to get him to stand. Harry scrambled up, casting about for the box, but as he turned it over, he realized it was empty.

He’d nearly gotten himself and Remus killed, turned his friend, maybe permanently, into a wolf, and the box was empty, the ring, the one reason they were in that miserable, godforsaken shack to begin with, was gone.

Distantly, he remembered Barty Crouch’s parting words at the end of that meeting Lucius had called. “ _You'll regret this, Patter! The Dark Lord knows exactly what you are up to and you will be stopped!..._ "

Voldemort knew that his Horcruxes were being hunted. He’d taken the ring, perhaps removed it to a safer location, perhaps taken it to wear with him. It didn’t matter. The ring was no longer there, and if it wasn’t there, Harry had no idea where it had been taken to. And now, the worst change that could possibly have happened in the timeline had happened.

Someone had betrayed Harry.

He wanted to rage, to scream and cry and break things the way he’d always dealt with loss and despair. He looked at Remus now, his golden eyes watching the the horror and revulsion Harry felt for himself for turning Remus into this… this monster… this form he’d always hated, always feared, always dreaded to become. He’d made him this, and as he gripped the cold wood of the Elder Wand, unresponsive and unwilling to bend to his will now that the danger had passed, he realized there was no way to unmake the spell. He couldn’t summon the terror he’d felt as Remus bled out before him mere minutes earlier to reverse the exsanguination curse, and even if he could, he had no idea what sort of dark, dire magic it was that had forced him to utter that spell that he’d never heard of nor even understood. Because the only terror he felt now was the slowly building kind, the one that moved him inexorably from one terrible realization into the next: How was he going to explain this to Remus’ friends?

As he and the wolf stood in the silent winter morning dawning on the shack, the only comfort he could take was in the quiet shuffle of massive paw touching his cold hands. Remus wouldn’t let him face this alone. Just as he hadn’t let him face the shack and all the failures that crumbled within it alone. They were going to be in this together, together in the dreadful, inexorable march of Time to the wedding, and together in the cold, prickle of terror that crawled through Harry’s form as he thought about James and Sirius and how they were going to completely and utterly castigate him for this error.

* * *

As major, life changing errors went, Harry thought he’d gotten through his return to Hogwarts with a massive tawny brown wolf in tow rather lightly. Sure, smuggling an 8 feet long, ten stone, massively huge gray wolf into a school without being spotted, even with the help of an Invisibility Cloak was no mean feat, but because Moony was smart and Harry was desperate, they made it to Dumbledore’s office with nary a bystander spotting even the smallest tuft of thick tawny fur of Moony’s hide.

Harry hadn’t been confident that the old Headmaster would know what he had done to change Remus so finally and permanently, but he wasn’t going to give up any options. They’d spent the better part of the day hidden in the shack, Harry pleading, begging with the Elder Wand to change Moony back to no avail. Even Griselda had been stumped, although the boomslang, once Harry had completed the long and convoluted task of freeing it from whatever compulsive enchantment Voldemort had cast on the snake suggested that being a monster wasn’t so bad—Moony was impervious to most wizard magics. Harry had been so mad he’d nearly then blasted the boomslang whose freedom he’d just secured into pieces, before he’d broken down and cried into the fur of Moony’s neck from the desperation of his predicament.

Dumbledore hadn’t known much of what to do. His command of the Elder Wand in his possession was masterful, but his magic was that of a wizard, and none of his spells affected the wolf. Moony had stared with mournful yellow eyes as spells fizzled and failed as they touched him.

“I’m afraid, Mr Patter,” Dumbledore said gravely, “that our young friend has become a Dire Wolf. It is a creature of magical legend, one whose Lycanthropy mixed with the blood curse of a Maledictus to eventually leave the person afflicted with the werewolf bite in the form of the beast, with the intelligence of a man. I find it most curious, as Maledictus afflict only witches, and Mr Lupin’s mother is a muggle.”

Harry wasn’t stupid. He knew what a Maledictus was from reading _Magicks Moste Darke_ with Hermione during the mad hunt for the Horcruxes back in their camping trip from hell. That his own unearthly magic could reduce one of the longest friends he’d had in his own timeline to this was unthinkable, but his eyes had cried out all of his tears. There was nothing more he could do for Remus.

Dumbledore could not allow a hulking, feral-looking apex predator to remain roaming the castle and had wisely suggested to remand Moony to Hagrid’s care in the Forbidden Forest, but Moony was Harry’s responsibility. He would not allow his friend to languish in the wild when all Remus had ever known to be was a boy, and especially not if he knew that the centaurs in the Forbidden Forest would find a werewolf permanently transformed an affront to their territorial claims against wizards might result in them hunting Moony. That wasn’t even counting on the countless other dangerous magical creatures that roamed the forest in the cover of night. Remus may be a Dire Wolf, impervious to wizard magic, but Harry was sure he would not fare well against hordes of Acromantula if they spotted him.

The Room of Requirement would have been his best option had Sirius, James and Lily not been there, sitting and talking and evidently waiting for Harry impatiently to return. With the wolf still shrouded in the Invisibility Cloak, none of them had noticed when Harry entered and held the door for a beat too long. Sirius was furious that he’d gone looking for trouble, alone, he thought, and nearly launched himself against Harry the way he had done when he’d plucked Harry from the devastating Fiendfyre he’d cast in the cave. James and Lily were beside themselves with worry. But none of them could be more shattered over the events in the Gaunt Shack as Harry relayed it to them than Harry himself, forced as he was to tell Remus’ friends what had become of their mild-mannered friend with the furry little problem.

When the wolf shook out of the Invisibility Cloak, James’ meltdown had been the worst of all. He’d taken one look at Remus’ keen amber eyes, recognized the bright, mischievous glint that had always been in Remus’ and collapsed into sobbing tears, hugging the wolf to himself, as Remus bayed a long mournful howl into the moon, rising heavy and full in the clear winter night. Sirius hadn’t been so kind: he’d taken one look at Remus, his fury over Harry putting himself in danger bubbling back to the surface, and had shot Harry one single incandescent look of pure rage, and stood and stomped out of the room without another word.

Lily looked sadly at Harry as he stared after his boyfriend’s retreating form. “He’ll come around, Harry. Sirius has always been someone who felt too keenly to process his emotions intelligently. But he’ll come around, and he’ll be begging forgiveness for abandoning you and Remus like this before you know it.”

Harry’s sob had caught in his throat as he, James and Moony darted their astounded eyes at Lily’s bright, calculating green ones. She flushed a bit, the pink clashing with the red of her hair and tawny dust of freckles in her cheek.

“What? I knew about Remus since third year! He was always disappearing on the full moon, and when we had that paper on hunting werewolves and other dark creatures in Care of Magical Creatures, he’d been so distressed, it wasn’t difficult to put two and two together.” She knelt before the massive beast, her small hands gentle as she touched his heavy snout. “Now, what is this business about a Maledictus? That’s insane.”

“It’s irreversible,” James sobbed, voice muffled into Moony’s fur.

Lily shot him a look of purely obstinate, willful pride. “It’s not. I’ll discover a cure for it. Mark my words, James Potter.”

Harry wished things were that simple. This was no longer about tweaking the Wolfsbane Potion Harry had snuck from the future. The eldritch magic that had plucked Remus from certain death was not one without trade-offs or consequences, and he feared that the price to pay for reversing such stygian magic may be more than what any of them would be willing to pay, even Remus himself.

Biting his lip to suppress the sob that threatened to bubble out, he hoped that things moved towards the showdown at the wedding in the optimistic light Lily chose to look at things. Sirius would come back to him, and Lily would find a cure to the dark curse Harry’s magic had placed on Remus. And Harry would face Voldemort alone and protect his friends or die trying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Na'ah'ehye r'luh hup mgepogg ot ymg' orr'e!
> 
> The Elder Wand is created by Death, and Draco kissing Harry at King's Cross gave him the essence of Death, so Harry is able to speak in the ancient eldtritch language of Death. Above, I used a Lovecraftian translator, which uses the language that Cthulhu speaks in The Call of Cthulhu. I figured Death is an eldritch being that cannot be known or understood as a being by the puny human mind, so it sort of works. 
> 
> Above translates to: Release the magic from the depths of your soul
> 
> This part took so much longer to come together and I've had to rewrite it several times, first to take out the porny interlude of the previous chapter, then again as I agonized over the permanence of Remus' condition. I'm _sorry!_ I love Remus but I needed consequences for this hunt. My problem with this chapter was that I wrote myself into a place I didn't really want to go; and I didn't want to have to deal with a new plot point coming up at the 11th hour of this fic either. I've given it some thought though, and it'll tie up neatly in the next chapter, for which I hope no one will come screaming for blood.
> 
> I added 1 more chapter, because I'd always intended to write this story an epilogue of sorts to tie all the loose ends together. There's still so many of them, and I'm glad for those among you who've taken the time to read my story, liked it, and commented on it. Like I said, this fic took over my life for the better part of a month, and I think it's one of my better attempts at writing. Thank you for being part of the ride, and watch out for the next (last) piece of the story!
> 
> BTW, the next chapter will be late in coming. I wrote a summary of it, and the summary is like 5000 words. I kinda wanna die.


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I found a good break-off point in the final chapter and managed to split it into two, so instead of one massive block of text, you get two, moderately paced ones. Basically, this means this story spawned yet another chapter.

Lily was wrong; Sirius hadn’t come back.

James hadn’t wanted to be an arse and tell Harry that Sirius had already been irrationally angry and feeling betrayed when he’d woken up to a cold bed with no Harry in it, as he’d obviously been expecting. He’d been worse when Wormtail woke and told them all that Remus was missing. Sirius had thundered around the dorm, muttering about lying, cheating boyfriends and shut himself off in the bathroom before James could disentangle himself from Lily and try to talk sense to his best friend. For all they knew, Remus and Harry might just be in Study Room 6, working on that potion that James knew had been an absolute godsend to Remus.

Harry had been a godsend to everyone.

When Harry had first shown up at school, James had been apprehensive. Who was this kid that looked so much like him but he hadn’t known about from his parents taking him as a young boy to meet with all of his relatives? James had been utterly suspicious at his appearance in the Great Hall at first, wondering if Dad (he most definitely _had_ to be related to Dad and the whole Potter line; James had photographs of when his grandfather, Henry, had been a boy and the new kid had looked exactly like grandfather had, gangly and thin and scrappy-looking from Henry going on adventures with the herds of hippogriffs that settled in the wild moors near the Dorset cottage where Henry had grown up) had been holding out on him, even though James as a little boy had spent more time traveling and meeting other Potters with his dad than he had learning rudimentary spells and his letters and numbers with the tutors mum had hired back home. When Harry sorted into Slytherin, his suspicions had solidified into a wary apprehension, believing he needed to protect his friends from this new unknown snake element in their midst. There were already so many uncertainties in sixth year, especially with the way a good number of the Slytherins seemed to be leaning heavily on joining the Dark side in a war that James could feel in his blood was just simmering in the horizon.

And then, Sirius and Harry happened, and the two of them let James and Remus into this absolutely fantastical secret of a boy from their future, _James’_ future with Lily, come to join them… and not only join them as a student. Harry had been older than he’d looked, a rather unfortunate consequence of the magic that had sent him to their time. James irrationally felt inadequate next to the obviously powerful, learned aura surrounding his son from the future. He had to wonder why Harry stayed in the school, hiding away like the sort of cowardly snake of the House he’d joined. But Harry was only being careful, planning craftily around his unfamiliarity with the times he’d appeared in, biding his time to set things in motion, and when he did, was it ever so spectacular to watch.

His son from the future had been an Auror and an Unspeakable. He’d known magics so esoteric, James and Sirius and Remus could only watch him in awe as the events of the Chamber of Secrets unfolded. He was authoritative when he needed to be, taking charge in protecting Narcissa, whom Sirius had already declared _persona non grata_ after numerous fights with his cousin through the years since she started at Hogwarts, but whom Sirius had never truly wanted hurt or expelled. Harry had protected her from a horrible future and taken the fall for her grief-born wrath over her sister’s death. He’d protected Sirius from the machinations of his grandfather in bringing Sirius back into the Black fold. Hell, Harry had even protected that Hufflepuff bloke, Ted Tonks, from the Blacks nearly trying to get him expelled after they found out about his plans to elope with Andromeda. His son was courageous, and kind, and loving in ways James could only ever have dreamed of. It had made him want to be the sort of more mature leader among his friends, so that the headstrong among them like Sirius learned to rein in his impetuous nature, and the timid, sycophantic Peter learn to stand up on his own feet. Meeting Harry had made James want to be a better man who would actually be _worthy_ of Lily’s attention, now that she was giving it to him.

Sure, he still had misgivings over Harry and Sirius’ blossoming closeness. Harry had obviously been hurt, and hurt very painfully in the past, by the deaths of everyone he’d known and loved, and Sirius was the sort of boy who not only kiss and told, but strung whoever struck his fancy along until he lost interest after getting what he wanted (usually just a fair bit of snogging; James had known Sirius was gay, though it had never been an established fact among the Marauders, but his friend hadn’t seemed all that interested in pursuingrelationships with the way he hid his orientation around everyone except James), and Harry was so much older than Sirius, even though he looked about the same age. But whatever it had been between them, it seemed Sirius was absolutely smitten with Harry (James wasn’t surprised; the Potter gene lent to rakishly handsome, charming and lovable rogues such as himself, after all) and Harry seemed utterly enslaved by his devotion to Sirius. The way Harry had looked so devastatingly longingly at Sirius after that diadem had attacked him had been, if James had to be frank with himself, a bit stomach-turning. He hadn’t quite realized a person could be so besotted with another person that they seemed to utterly disregard anyone and anything else, including themselves.

After their flight from the cave, Harry had been even more obviously enthralled with James’ best friend. Something had happened between them in that week leading up to the cave (a something that James later rather wished he didn’t have to know about—being Sirius’ best friend meant he had to weather through the storm of Too Much Information about his friend and his son’s sex lives, part payment, Sirius had told him, for constantly being subjected to James raving about how crazy he was about Lily for the five years they’d all known her) that had Harry transforming from protective boyfriend into worshipful devotee to Sirius.

But Sirius also had misgivings since the events of the cave. He’d told James about the frenzied rush of Dark Arts magic Harry had used on the Inferi in the cave, about Harry trying to cast the Cruciatus Curse on Snape. James knew Sirius was terrified of the way the rush of power the Dark Arts had completely gripped Harry that it seemed he’d continued to use them over and over again.Perhaps it had been a hasty judgment on Sirius’ part. James’ mother had told him Harry had been in the grip of some sort of post-traumatic shock that trapped him in his memories of the war. Perhaps Harry had leanings on the use of the Dark Arts. It certainly wasn’t far-fetched for the Potter line. James knew his family had leanings into the Dark Arts which Fleamont worked hard to overcome so as to not teach his son the sort of destructive magics that he and his father knew from their time during the Great War against Grindelwald. Perhaps it was unfair to view a man conditioned to react severely and cruelly against the equally destructive force Snivellus had unleashed on Harry. Harry had been through a war, and his experiences could never be something that James or Sirius, who grew up soft and loved in a time of peace, could ever hope to understand.

James knew Sirius thought himself in love with Harry, but he also knew that love was shadowed by the taint of the danger and evil that hung over Harry’s head, by the pall that Voldemort cast on everything and everyone. So he hadn’t been all that surprised when Sirius felt his lover could no longer be trusted after they’d all been explicitly warned by Fleamont that they shouldn’t court danger if they didn’t have to. The fact that Harry had taken Remus with him, and that Remus had been struck by whatever life-altering spell to save his life from a curse in the box that was supposed to contain the ring mcguffin Harry was convinced was another Horcrux that only he could obtain, and that the same ring had not even been found despite making the entire ordeal a complete waste, just made everything worse in Sirius’ eyes. 

So James understood his best friend.

He understood Harry too. Since the night he and Remus had returned, Harry had been utterly inconsolable. James knew he blamed himself of everything that had happened: Sirius getting attacked by the diadem, Andromeda dying because of the snake (how this was even Harry’s fault when he hadn’t know Croaker had the diary was beyond James’ ability to understand the utterly noble and self-sacrificing and _complete_ disregard for his own well-being that Harry seemed to carry like a chip on his shoulder), Sirius getting hurt at the cave, and now Remus permanently transformed into a wolf. It wasn’t even his fault. James wanted to be angry at the hand life dealt to his son. Harry had grown up an orphan. James didn’t need to know what sort of person Lily’s sister had been because it was just painfully obvious from how little he valued his own life that Harry had been abused and repeatedly told he was worth nothing growing up. And then he’d been groomed to be a weapon of war, and then a sacrificial lamb. It wasn’t fair, and truthfully, he wanted to rage and rampage against all of the people who’d made his son’s life the living hell it had become—Petunia, Dumbledore, Snivellus… fucking Voldemort (if James could kill with a thought, he’d have done so as soon as he’d found out about his son’s life).

He thought Sirius wasn’t being fair to Harry, heaping all the blame about Remus’ sorry predicament on him, especially when it was obvious that Harry had already torn into himself so completely, he’d stopped trying to even work out what had Sirius so mad. Harry had instead, simply withdrawn.

And not just from Sirius. He stopped attending classes and would disappear for hours on end, usually only with Moony the wolf and Gris the grootslang for company. James knew Harry hid the nights in the Room of Requirement instead of returning to the Slytherin dorms because even fucking Rosier had hexed Sirius in the corridors outside Potions one day, demanding that Sirius release their dorm mate from supposed captivity in Gryffindor Tower. But every time James or Lily had tried to search Harry out, he hadn’t been in the Room at all. James had the feeling that Harry spent the days outside in the forest with Moony to keep the wolf from getting restless, and then snuck him in during the night to rest in the Room of Requirement. But he’d almost all but stopped managing to find Harry in the castle or on the grounds at all.

He sighed, ruffling his hair in utter frustration, as he met up with Lily in Study Room 6. Lily had taken to working obsessively on the Wolfsbane Potion since Harry had returned with the cursed Moony, convinced she’d find a cure. James wanted to hug her for how devoted she was in finding a cure, in righting the wrongs and injustices wrought on her son from the future, while James tried to work out how he could mend the fractured friendship he had with the Marauders and Harry.

Lily looked up from her cauldron, smiling tiredly as he entered the study room. “Hey.”

James nodded glumly to her. He couldn’t even feel glad that he got to spend inordinate amounts of time alone with her with Sirius off sulking endlessly and Harry wallowing in self-pity and hiding himself away with Moony. It seemed only Peter was any good company around the Marauders, and Peter had been so excluded, he’d gone and found himself new friends. James was wary over these new friends, especially since one of them was Barty Crouch Jr, who’d been a right horrible little bigot in that weird meeting Malfoy had called.

“Hey,” he said, collapsing into a stool next to Lily.

“Any luck with Sirius?” Lily asked, frowning at the way James buried his head in his hands and muffled a frustrated scream.

“He’s still being a berk,” James mumbled with a defeated sigh. “He doesn’t want to talk about Harry at all! I just don’t get him. He says he’s in love with Harry, but he doesn’t want to even talk about what exactly it was he found Harry had done wrong _this_ time. It’s not like Harry hadn’t gone rushing off to danger all the times he’s been here. Hell, he _jumped_ in front of a giant snake that can kill with its sight to protect some girl he didn’t even care about in his timeline.”

Lily nodded. “I guess he’s just really hurt. He was so worried over Harry back during the New Year.”

“Harry really needs to understand that he shouldn’t be running off to danger all the time too,” James added, giving voice to all his frustrations over his best friend and his boyfriend. “Can’t be that hard to be sensitive over the way Sirius was all torn up over what happened to him during the hols.”

Lily shook her head. “I guess I can understand where Harry’s coming from. He’s been doing these things all on his own for so long, feeling like he can’t rely on anyone, like he can’t put anyone in any more danger than he already has, because he’s already lost so much. You haven’t seen him when he talked about how he’d been after he lost the Sirius in his timeline. James, Harry only _had_ Sirius left in his life in his previous timeline that he can remember. I guess he feels that he can’t do that to himself all over again, he can’t lose Sirius like that again.”

“Feels like he’s lost him anyway, with Sirius trying to bury his head in the sand over all this,” James muttered mutinously.

The troubled look Lily sent him warmed him a little bit. Lily was such a good person, worrying about James’ friends and even spending all her free time developing a cure for Remus.

“I know, James. I wish things could be better for Harry. He deserves so much more.”

James wished Sirius could see things from the way Harry looked at it instead of just diving into this grudge he seemed determined to hold onto. Harry needed all the help he could get. And Harry himself really needed to stop withdrawing from everyone. He needed to understand that even though James and Lily weren’t his parents in this timeline yet, that they still loved him and wanted to help him, that there were people who _could_ help him now, instead of having to just take on all the burdens of saving the world on himself.

Lily was wrong; Sirius hadn’t come back.

That was the only thing that ran through Harry’s mind, playing like a sordid broken record on an interminable loop as he drifted through the weeks leading up to the wedding in a haze of self-recrimination, and blank determination to just end everything on the terms he’d originally decided when he first came here, in this timeline. He stopped attending classes, or even going back to the dorms at all. He avoided James and Lily, and did his best to stay away from Sirius, now with greater success than he’d originally had when he’d been trying to quell his rising attraction for his godfather. It wasn’t like it was very difficult to avoid them, when they had to continue on with their education, while Harry had decided to give up on the farce entirely. He spent the days either holed up in the Room of Requirement, hidden away with Moony and Gris, stewing over his failure of returning Moony back to his human form, and going back to his previous desire to simply end the Horcrux hunt and Voldemort come the Lestrange wedding, and then… well, if he had no more memories of living beyond his death in 1998, then maybe that was for the best. Maybe he just really needed to die. He couldn’t even remember what it had been like for him from the timeline that he’d left. All he knew was that he’d been plagued by a gaping emptiness in the days leading up to his landing in 1977.

The same gaping emptiness he felt now.

He hadn’t felt like this in months, not since he’d become friends with the Marauders and Lily. Not since _Sirius._

And didn’t it all really come back to him? Sirius had been almost the sole driving force of what Harry had been doing the entire time he’d been in this timeline. He knew when he arrived here that he’d done whatever it was he’d done to get here to die. And somehow he didn’t, so he’d thought initially to give it time, but then his magic had been overpowered and it just refused to let him bite it. Then he’d thought of finishing the quest on the Horcruxes and Voldemort in this timeline so his parents didn’t have to die later. So Sirius didn’t have to go to Azkaban. So Sirius didn’t have to die. He hadn’t given much thought of what it was he was going to do once he succeeded. That hadn’t mattered. All that did was that James and Lily would be together, and Sirius would be alive. Perhaps if Harry had been truthful to himself about things, he hadn’t really expected to even stay alive this long, just like he hadn’t really expected that he would survive the war.

Which he didn’t. He did die in 1998.

Maybe he’d die here too, maybe it’d be on the day of the wedding. The day of reckoning.

And so convincing himself that there was no certainty that he would live beyond the end of his quest, so convinced that there wasn’t a pressing _need_ to, not when Sirius—this timeline’s Sirius—didn’t care, he turned his mind towards finishing his quest.

He’d been betrayed; he wasn’t sure by whom. He hoped it wasn’t by anyone he knew. The people in this timeline—they weren’t the same as they were in his. James and Lily were just teenagers who wanted to date each other. Sirius, Remus and Peter were just boys. Lucius Malfoy was no Death Eater. Harry hoped it’d been none of them, because if it were, then maybe what he had been fighting for in this timeline hadn’t made all that much of a difference.

“Do you think whoever told Voldemort about the ring being in danger is here in the school?” he asked Moony one evening as they sat deep in the forest. It was February and the frost and damp was getting to Harry, but Moony’s fur was warm around him, and for all the Warming Charms weren’t anything related to conquest, the Elder Wand cast them beautifully. Even Gris was feeling toasty with the heating spell Harry had cast on her so she could hunt.

Moony lazed next to a fallen log, sniffing the air. His eyes glowed in the gloom as he cast a glance at Harry’s morose expression. The noises he made were always animal, always wolf-like, howls and grunts and snarls. But whenever Harry caught his eye, they almost always sounded in his head like the boy Remus had been.

 _“Maybe_ ,” the wolf told him. “ _But who else knows?”_

Harry stared up at the waning moon. It was at three quarters still, but the moon no longer affected Moony at all. Now he was just Remus, the boy, stuck in the body of a monster permanently. Harry had robbed him of a future.

“I don’t know,” he said softly. “It doesn’t matter anyway. We’ll all see him on Easter. And I’ll be sure to finish it then. Finish everything.”

 _“I hope that doesn’t include yourself,_ ” Moony said quietly.

 _“Better things to wish for,_ ” Gris advised the wolf, but Moony was a wolf and the conversation was mostly half-imagined in Harry’s head. Gris certainly knew how he felt about everything now.

Maybe there wasn’t anything he could do anymore for Moony. The Elder Wand simply refused to work on the dire wolf now, and all Harry could really do for his friend was to make him happy and comfortable until he croaked it. He was sure James wouldn’t let Moony go; his father would take the wolf in, and maybe when Harry was born in 1980, he’d be friends with this massive, intelligent wolf that seemed so much gentler than any magical predator had a right to be. But Harry?

He wasn’t going to dawdle. There was no Sirius stopping him now. He was going to die this time.

He was sure of it.

* * *

Lily was wrong; Sirius didn’t come back.

Sirius had been confused at first when he woke up, naked and alone in bed, unsure whether Harry had slipped away to go to the bathroom or if he thought it might be inappropriate for them to wake up in bed together now that the rest of Gryffindor were back. Sirius was pretty sure James wouldn’t care. Remus would rib them both endlessly, like he always did when Sirius started dating (“It’s just not right, Pads. You snog these people in the corridors but your heart always belonged to Prongs.” Or maybe, since he and Harry happened, the more recent “Prongs, you need to up your game; Padfoot’s not a virgin anymore.”) Sirius didn’t give a rat’s arse about Peter’s opinions. So he wasn’t entirely sure what Harry was so apprehensive about.

He figured they’d meet up at breakfast in the Great Hall, but Harry hadn’t been there either. In fact, Moony hadn’t been there. Moony hadn’t been in bed at all. Peter was confused because, lately, it had always been Sirius who disappeared to Merlin only knew where since Sirius was the one with the boyfriend with a different House loyalty. James had gone to check the map, but neither Harry nor Remus had shown up.

Sirius thought they were in the Room of Requirement. The room had never shown in the map, regardless of how the three of them who knew of the room tried to enchant the map to get it to appear. Maybe they were working on Harry’s potions project for Remus. It could have been anything.

But Harry wasn’t in the Room of Requirement either. For that matter, neither was Remus.

It was then that Sirius’ suspicions had grown. Harry, he thought, hadn’t spoken a word about that check list of his that Sirius remembered him agonizing over during the hols, not since—the cave. Snape. Fleamont had extracted promises out of him, James and Harry that they would leave off this mess of trying to take Voldemort down to the adults. Well, Sirius and Harry were legally considered adults in the Wizarding World now, but mostly Fleamont meant to leave these things to the authorities, the Ministry and the Aurors, with whom Fleamont and Henry were leaning their not inconsiderable clout on in order to galvanize them into swifter action. And it wasn’t like they were failing. In the weeks since term started, the papers had shown a lot of progress—arrests on known sympathizers suspected of illegal use of magic against muggles, harassment of the greater wizarding public, that sort of thing. There were articles on the Wizengamot’s increasingly moderate stance on muggleborns and, to a certain extent, creature rights. Sirius had mostly figured that the shift in Harry’s focus, from his seemingly insurmountable task of ending Voldemort’s reign of terror to more mundane things that a teenager should be focused on, like school and Quidditch and his friends and dating, had been a good sign.

Evidently not a good enough one, if Harry was missing.

He worked himself into a tizzy, James trying to get him to be reasonable, with very little success. Had Harry simply stopped talking about this quest of his only to placate him after he’d worried himself near to death over what they’d both faced in the cave? Sirius didn’t think himself gullible that he would have fallen for a farce of being made the center of Harry’s attentions in recent weeks. That had to be genuine, right? Sirius had told him he loved him and Harry—

He’d stopped then and tried to rewind the previous night’s heat and passion and pent up sexual excitement exploding. _Had_ Harry actually ever said it back? Harry, as a boyfriend, was a lot more demonstrative than declarative in his affections. He’d never really gone for the sort of mushy declarations of his feelings. Sirius didn’t consider himself mushy at all, but he liked that people knew where they stood with him, and he made no secret of the fact that he did love his boyfriend. Very very much. Maybe a bit too much, Wormtail had told him once. Sirius hadn’t been bothered. But Harry wasn’t like him at all. He seemed to think that he didn’t have the way with words that Sirius had, and preferred to use action—passion, to demonstrate how he felt. And Sirius had been fine with that. Harry looked at him like he hung the moon, James had told him that. Sirius didn’t need words to understand when he was loved.

The thing was, passion and admiration and love were very different things. Oh they were all part of a spectrum of feelings, some of which could be better shown than others. Sirius thought Harry was doing fine making him feel all these things all at once, but now he wasn’t so sure. Yeah, Harry may think he hung the moon, but he’d never outright admitted that he was in love with Sirius the way Sirius was absolutely head over feet besotted with him. Wormtail had told him, as he’d worked himself up, that those were very different things. Thinking and showing a telling—words had power, Peter said, parroting some line Dumbledore had used when the four of them had gotten into that one detention that the Headmaster had used as a recruitment pitch for his Order of the Phoenix.

James told him it was bullshit, one didn’t need to say things like love to make it be felt, but he couldn’t deny that the same words Peter had repeated from the Headmaster did make a lot of sense. Being told, in no uncertain terms, where one stood with another was always going to be better than being left to wonder where one’s place was. It was how Sirius navigated his life around his parents once he’d Sorted to Gryffindor, after all. Orion and Walburga told him he was the inferior son, after Regulus stayed true to the family mold, and that was alright with Sirius. He knew they didn’t like him, so he took himself away from that horrid house, and found people who loved him instead.

“I think you’re being too harsh on him,” James told him when he tried to calm him down.

Sirius wanted to believe him, but the seed of doubt was a hard weed to root out and kill. Once it had been planted, there was no telling when it would rear its ugly insidious head. _Did_ Harry love him the way he did Harry? Sirius wanted to think he knew the answer to this, but now that Peter had pointed it out, how was he to just accept things without his position being made clear, in no uncertain words?

So he stewed on this shadow of a doubt, until Harry had come back with not Remus, but Moony—Moony who couldn’t transform back, who shouldn’t have been Moony at all given it wasn’t even moonrise yet on a night of the full moon.

He hadn’t wanted to lose it, to blow up after everything he and Harry had been throw and just throw it all in his face, so he’d walked away.

And he kept walking.

James hadn’t been pleased when he found him in the common room that night, but he’d refrained from tearing into Sirius where other people might hear about what had happened to Remus. Sirius made sure there was no opportunity between them for James to ever corner him about Harry at all.

McGonagall announced to the Gryffindor sixth years the following day that Remus had been pulled out of school by his father, due to his chronic, persistent illnesses. Sirius wanted to break things. Now, it seemed, not only had Harry destroyed the fragile hopeful love between them by insisting on sneaking around him for this vaunted quest of his, he’d well and truly gotten someone in shit so deep, there was no climbing out.

This wasn’t fair to Remus at all. He’d just had his life ripped away from him, if Sirius understood exactly what the whole dire wolf shit that one of his closest friends had been reduced to. And he couldn’t understand why James didn’t see it the way he did. Remus was _gone_. And he was gone because of Harry. Sirius didn’t know if that was something he could forgive.

And anyway, why _did_ he have to think about forgiving Harry at all? It wasn’t like his boyfriend was forthcoming with apologies at all. Come to think of it, Sirius hadn’t even seen Harry in the days that passed since Harry returned with the permanently transformed Moony.

When Rosier hexed him after Potions and yelled at him to release his house mate, Sirius hadn’t risen to the bait either. Harry had all but disappeared. He’d stopped attending classes, and James, who’d pored over the map obsessively when they themselves weren’t in class, had no idea where his son was. And as Sirius wasn’t his keeper, there was no reason for him to even dignify Rosier’s tantrum with a response.

It was a boring existence, being at odds with his best friend and having no lover to turn to. Sirius had spent so much time with Harry in the months since Harry had appeared in Hogwarts that the closeness they had even eclipsed Sirius’ friendship with James. For his part, James initially tried to give him space to work out his anger, but Sirius was done being angry. He was done being anything. And since it felt like he was nothing, he proceeded to act like there was nothing wrong at all, except that he refused to be drawn into any conversation involving Harry.

He would have gone on existing the way he had, spending time with James only when Peter was around, and the rest of the time, being alone and denying to himself how much this separation from his best friend and boyfriend was affecting him. He absolutely would have died on this hill if Narcissa hadn’t cornered him in Hogsmeade, barely two weeks before the wedding.

She was evidently on a date with Malfoy, who eyed Sirius warily from the distance his girlfriend had made him wait as she caught up to Sirius, who was mostly trying to get away from James and Lily, not because he felt like a third wheel in their date, but because they were both badgering him about Harry. Narcissa caught him as he sneaked off to a back alley behind Scrivenshaft. He’d bought cigarettes from Steeplechase, the nearest Muggle town where he and James had once snuck off to in their fifth year, on an escapade to obtain and sample muggle liquor, and another time with Remus to buy and sample said cigarettes.

He was lighting up with his wand when she came up to him and he ended up setting his eyebrows on fire instead.

“ _Aguamenti_ ,” his cousin coolly flicked her wand and Sirius found his face drenched and freezing in the cool late February chill.

Sirius fumbled for a new stick of cigarette, because soggy sticks were disgusting, and lit up. “What do you want?”

Narcissa stared in barely concealed disgust as he took a puff, found he didn’t actually know how to inhale the smoke in his lungs the way those muggles seemed to pull off so effortlessly and started coughing himself into a fit. “Why are you here without Patter?”

Sirius beat his chest repeatedly until the coughing subsided. He had tears in the corners of his eyes. “Why do I need to be here with Patter? I’m not his keeper.”

Narcissa appraised him coolly. “You’re not, are you? This despite the fact that not two weeks ago, you’ve been climbing him like a tree and skulking in shadowy alcoves to engage in… distasteful displays of your affection?”

Sirius glared at her. “If you want to be a bigot over the fact that I’m gay, you don’t need to bring him up to do it. I’ve _been_ gay all my life, Cissa. Live with it or get out of my face.”

Narcissa a very un-ladylike sound. “I hardly care what gender you prefer in your bed, Sirius. That frolicking in the grass with another boy is not going to give you an heir is not my loss as Grandfather will manage to tear you a new one over that fact at some point.”

Sirius finally managed to get the hang of smoking the cigarette about halfway through the stick and he cocked it between two fingers to gesture at his cousin. “Yeah, so go mind your business instead of getting all up in mine. I’m busy.”

“You hardly are,” she told him, “but that isn’t what I’m here for either.” She reached into a robe pocket and pulled something out and shoved it to him. “Here. I thought you might want to do something about this.”

Sirius scowled and would have hurled the parchment back at her when he recognized the handwriting. It was a Gemino copy made of the check list Harry had been studying back during the hols.

“Where did you get this?” he demanded, suddenly suspicious. How had anyone gotten a copy of this? How had it fallen in his cousin’s hands? Did this have anything to do with what had happened to Harry and Remus?

Narcissa was already turning back. “You’ll be surprised.” She half-turned to smirk at him. “Pleasant day, cousin. Mind that you not lose your gallant prince to the tantrum you’ve been throwing.”

She hurried back to Lucius, who nodded cautiously at Sirius, before leading her away in the direction of Madam Puddifoot’s. Sirius made a face at the disgustingly saccharine couple they made, and turned his attention back to the parchment.

He was right in his first assessment of it. It wasn’t actually Harry’s note so much as an expertly made facsimile and he found his lips tugged into an unconscious smile as he traced the fat, round letters of Harry’s handwriting. He didn’t miss him—he didn’t!

Alright, maybe a little. He was in love with him still. It wasn’t like this separation wasn’t tearing him apart, but the feelings of betrayal and his keen sense of the injustice done to Moony smothered and poisoned a lot of that love. He’d been working at suppressing the overflow of emotion and hadn’t really gotten around to doing it with much measure of success, at least not while he was human, so he’d taken to prowling around in his animagus form whenever he wasn’t with James and Peter, so he didn’t have to feel so much so keenly. It’d been a mostly hit or miss endeavor. Padfoot didn’t know Harry as well as Sirius did, but the dog still felt confused by some vague sense of loss that it couldn’t understand.

Now though, even just the sight of Harry’s handwriting, even just a magical copy of it, threatened to send him bawling.

The list appeared to be a portion of Harry’s original list of the horcruxes that he’d intended to hunt, with those he thought he’d found crossed out. There was only one that Sirius could read that was as yet not crossed out, the one he surmised Harry had gone after with Moony in tow. The Gaunt ring, which Harry apparently believed carried the Resurrection Stone, from the Three Brothers legend. Was it actually real? Sirius didn’t care enough to think about it, since evidently, Harry hadn’t been successful in retrieving it, given that he’d had nothing to show for from that trip apart from a permanently cursed Moony. Curiously, the list was overwritten by another hand in spiky red ink. The overlap in Harry’s handwriting, along with the mystery note writer, and the crumpled nature of the parchment made the writing difficult to read, especially through the heavy blur of tears that obscured Sirius’ vision, but he thought he knew what it meant.

He needed to find James.

* * *

They didn’t find Harry, and they were out of time. Lily was in the boy’s dorms today, helping James with the collar of his dress robes. Peter was nowhere to be found, and just as well, because Sirius couldn’t countenance the sight of him ever since Narcissa had given him the note. James didn’t want him to jump into conclusions at all, not until they knew where the note had come from, how it had gotten into Narcissa’s hands, and what Peter had to do with anything at all. Peter hadn’t known anything still, after all. James and Remus had been careful about anything they discussed about Harry around him, knowing Harry seemed uneasy around the fourth member of the Marauders, and Sirius flat out refused to talk about Harry around Peter for the longest time, until Harry had returned with Moony cursed and transformed and Sirius had decided it was one betrayal too many.

Fleamont and Euphemia were waiting for them in the Great Hall, ready to whisk them to Blackheath Abbey, an ancestral property of the Lestranges, deep in the heart of London, where the massively grand wedding between Rodolphus and Bellatrix were to take place. Sirius’ heart was in his throat, terrified of what may happen with Voldemort in attendance, but at the same time, relieved in a confused sort of way that neither he nor James could find Harry. With Harry not at the wedding at all, then there was every chance he’d be safe. He wouldn’t act rashly if he found those Horcruxes he was so desperate to find, and he wouldn’t attempt to attack Voldemort in the throng of dark Pureblood families that were sure to attend the wedding. Sirius and James would let the Aurors, which Arcturus assured Fleamont would be stationed to secure the massive event, handle any trouble that may arise.

Sirius didn’t know that he was ready, but they’d recently had their Apparition trainings, and since he was of age, he’d been allowed to take and pass the test. He’d help James get away in case any trouble arose and Fleamont and Euphemia couldn’t get to them fast enough.

James ruffled his hair in that rakish way he had about him that made him look like he’d just been out flying, earning him a frustrated snort from Lily. “It was all nice and formal without you ruining the Sleekeazy.”

“Babe, you know that doesn’t work on me,” James smirked as he tied adjusted the dark red cravat at his neck so it wasn’t suffocating him just so. It was the perfect counterpoint to the dark grey dress robes he wore, and if Sirius didn’t still have his heart utterly and irrevocably attached to Harry, he would have found his best friend frustratingly attractive just then.

“I think you should have just worn a suit,” Lily hummed when James asked her how he looked. “Sirius pulls it off rather well.”

 _Rather well_ was an understatement. Sirius wore a bespoke three-piece suit, the sort that was pre-ordered months in advance but because of the sheer amount of money and power backing the Black name, one he’d gotten made in less than a week. The designer had been Muggle. Sirius knew all about Muggle fashion houses from those non-moving magazines Lily always had laying around in the common room. The jacket was in a black jacquard fabric with an embossed stylized damask pattern on the weave. A silken black kerchief trimmed in muted gold was artfully messy-folded into the breast pocket. The vest and shirt inside were only of the finest black wool. He didn’t like how the shirt tugged closed at his throat and kept the top three buttons open, with a black ascot printed with muted gold paisley kept from exposing too much skin. Fitted tailored trousers, oxfords, and a black stovepipe hat trimmed in fine black velvet finished the look.

Lily let out a low whistle. “You do look rather dapper, Mr Black.”

Sirius snorted, the air of gravitas the suit lent him completely ruined. “If it weren’t for the ascot, I’d been struggling for breath like Prongs over there.”

James tried to grin but the tightness of the high starched wing collar of his robes didn’t give much relief in spite of him loosening his tie. “I can’t breathe in this thing.”

“Must be all that pumpkin pasties, then,” Lily giggled, poking his side.

James groaned and fidgeted some more before donning his pointed wizard hat, the same one he’d always worn because James Potter was too cool for hats, as Lily finally pronounced them ready.

“Do you think Harry will show…?” Sirius asked nervously.

They’d searched for Harry for days since Sirius got the note, ostensibly to warn him to stay away from the wedding, given that there seemed to be a leak in their knowledge of the horcruxes (Sirius believed whoever wrote Peter’s name on the note; James still thought it was premature without knowing who had actually given Narcissa the note) and while he didn’t want to bring Harry with and expose him to danger being in the same place as Voldemort, he couldn’t keep the lump in his throat from forming over his terrible behavior over the past month. He’d all but abandoned his boyfriend, in one of Harry’s most terrible moments of ignominious defeat, and he just wanted to be with him right now, hold his hand and tell him that he wasn’t alone, that Sirius had been stupid, an utter berk, for blaming Remus’ curse on Harry, when Harry had only tried to save their friend’s life.

James sighed as he kissed his girlfriend. “I don’t know, Pads. We don’t even know where he is. I can only hope he doesn’t so he doesn’t put himself in any sort of danger.”

Sirius lowered his eyes as the two of them exited the dorms to the catcalls from some of the other Gryffindors in the common room. James bowed with a flourish, but Sirius was too out of sorts and feeling small and awful for being such an arse. Lily touched his hand, her expression kind as she reached up and kissed his cheek.

“It’ll be alright, Sirius,” she said softly. “We’ll find him, and he’ll be safe. We’ll _keep_ him safe if he’s out here, and I’m sure Mr Potter will too if he does show up at the wedding.”

Sirius didn’t say anything. He couldn’t help feeling that Lily was still wrong. She’d been wrong about Sirius coming back. He couldn’t help feeling that she was wrong about Harry being safe, or anyone’s ability to keep him that way given what they were about to face.

He heaved a breath and held his arm out to his best friend. James pretended to be a fawning, fluttering lady and accepted the arm with a smirk. There was nothing for it but to go through and hope for the best, hope that Lily was right. She had to be. Sirius wouldn’t accept any other outcome.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I promised I would never write any sort of miscommunication plot, but you have to understand that Sirius was hurt by the fact that he felt Harry didn't trust him enough to tell him that he'd gone after the horcruxes again, and that he didn't figure a large enough portion of Harry's life for Harry to mutually reassure him that he loved him and that he could stay out of danger for him. Wormtail egging him on by being a jerk, and Harry returning defeated, with Remus permanently cursed was just icing on the betrayal pie that Sirius felt.


	31. Chapter 31

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How ready are you to have your heart ripped out of your chest? I was going to wait, but i want to ruin your weekend _now_.

Blackheath Abbey was an ancient hulking stone structure remnant from the Middle Ages. It was the structure that formed the base of the Montagu House in the 17th century, before it was demolished, and later appropriated by the Lestranges by bewitching the muggles that had handled the parceling of Greenwich Park. After Montagu House was destroyed, the Lestranges had rebuilt the abbey using magic, and from the blackened earth of the rubble rose the medieval structure not very different from the gothic castles of Czechoslovakia, with the rising stone buttresses, eyeless stone gargoyles that nonetheless looked like they were watching you, creepy stained glass art of Merlin triumphing over the savage muggle Saxons, and tall, pointed spires that seemed to aspire heavenward in the quest for glory. Sirius wasn’t entirely sure why the Lestranges, who despised and vilified muggles as nothing more than pigs and cattle to be domesticated and subjugated by wizards, were so intent in appropriating property smack in the middle of vastly muggle populated areas.

The abbey grounds were steeped in dark magic, still faintly reeking of the smell of blood spilt when some ancient, mad Lestrange ancestor slaughtered the muggles that had run the demolition of the Montagu House for no reason other than he happened to be walking in the woods surrounding Greenwich commons, and the air seemed inordinately heavy for what was supposed to be a festive wizard occasion. They’d passed through the wards via portkey so neither Sirius nor James had spotted the Aurors patrolling the grounds, but even the overcast sky, heavy and dark with the promise of an out of season thunderstorm in the bloom of spring, seemed to think the wedding was an ominous sign of dark portent.

The wedding banquet was arranged in the middle of a massive stone quadrangle with a raised dais adorned with elegant black leather thrones for the newly weds, and a carved stone pulpit for the officiator. Rodolphus, with his dark, feral-looking face, sat stony-eyed and bored-looking in his moss-green formal robes at one of the thrones, but Bellatrix was in the middle of a throng of admiring Pureblood society women, all cooing over the magnificence of the trail of her black lace and silk wedding robes, adorned in deep purple ranunculus flowers at her crown. The giant black diamondrock of a wedding ring her new husband had given her glinted harshly in the flare of winking magical lights strung overhead, floating in the air.

It seemed they’d arrived after the ceremony, if she was already out here lording over the stuffily dressed society ladies, though there was no sign that the banquet had started, and if Sirius knew his cousin at all, she’d probably thrown out the tradition of not being seen by her husband-to-be until Cygnus and Druella walked her to the dais to give her away to Lestrange. It was a strange sort of symbolism given that, it seemed, the Blacks maintained primacy over the union, if the Black crest displayed prominently in dark green and silver on the wall behind the dais was any indication.

Arcturus was gathered around a crowd of Sirius’ cousins, Narcissa and Regulus in strict attendance, wearing similar starched dark green robes, Regulus of fine dark velvet, and Narcissa’s in a crushed damask Victorian dress, layered with thick frothing lace frills over a wide petticoat. The two of them stood when they spotted Sirius and James and made a beeline for them.

“Stay close,” Fleamont warned as his keen eyes scanned the crowd for any indication of danger. Sirius had done the same thing automatically, but then that was always how he’d reacted when forced into a gathering with his family, because for the most part, his family _was_ the danger.

“Where’s Patter?” Regulus demanded, sniffing stuffily as he eyed Sirius up and down as if his fabulous Muggle suit was an affront to the strictly wizarding Pureblood gathering they’d attended. It probably was; that had been the whole point of wearing a suit designed by a muggle.

Sirius grinned at him.”Hello, little brother.”

“You look ridiculous,” Regulus told him, not mincing his words.

Sirius tried not to be offended on behalf of Hubert de Givenchy. His suit was a work of art, infused with magic by hired private wizard tailors to work with the muggle designer in producing Sirius’ outfit, and Givenchy had exquisite taste in fabrics, patterns and style, having hailed from French nobility himself.

“We couldn’t find him,” James answered, his voice low and serious. “But it’s just as well that he isn’t here. Is, erm, You-Know-Who…?”

Narcissa shook her head regally, her long blond hair styled in cascading curls down the middle of her back, and pinned away from her face with her bronze feather and lace fascinator hat, making her look like some of the Pureblood ladies who lunch that surrounded Bellatrix. “We have not seen him. Bella has advised Grandfather that he will be here though.”

Sirius tilted his head closer to her, fishing into his trouser pocket for the note he’d kept close in the hopes of determining its origin. “Who sent you this?” he asked under his breath, drawing his cousin away from the gathering of the younger people in the crowd.

Narcissa didn’t have to peer at the scrap of parchment in Sirius’ hand to know what it was. “Would you believe it for the warning it’s meant to be if I told you?”

Sirius’ eyes were hooded, but he nodded. James came to crowd around the two of them.

“It is the truth, the name written on that parchment is the one who provided a sympathizer of the Dark Lord the copy of this… list,” Narcissa warned. “You know that DMLE Head Crouch has no love lost with the Dark Lord—he hunts his followers like dogs, but his son is a traitor to Purebloods and sympathizes with the philosophies of the man who killed my sister.”

“How did Crouch get this then?” James demanded. “And how did you manage to get it from him?”

Narcissa’s blue eyes were laden with steel. At five foot three, she was head and shoulders shorter than James, but her presence was cold and commanded attention as she drew herself up at him. “A friend of Lucius came to warn him. Your friend, Pettigrew sows discontent among you, against Patter. He despises the attention that you’ve lavished on a Slytherin whom he believes is your enemy. He is a witless swine to have trusted that Crouch will not use this information for nefarious purposes.” She smiled coolly at James and Sirius’ gobsmacked expression. “Yes, I know about these artifacts. I’m not stupid, Sirius. I saw the diadem kill you. I saw Patter desperately search Croaker for the diary. I know what these things are, and I know Patter hunts them, that they’re connected to the Dark Lord. Your friend, Pettigrew… he only saw a boy who had an aptitude for attracting trouble. He showed this list to Crouch, I believe, and that his how Crouch was confident in screaming his allegiance during our meeting in school last month.”

Sirius exchanged glances with James. They both remembered Crouch’s high-pitched screaming tantrum over Voldemort knowing exactly what Harry was up to. Was that why Harry had failed to obtain and destroy the ring when he’d gone to get it with Remus?

“Severus knows things, Sirius,” Narcissa said quietly. “You hate him, I know. He nearly murdered Patter during the solstice. He’s confessed as much to Lucius. But he did not intend to kill him.”

“You’re telling me Snivellus tried to… rat out his junior Death Eater friend?” James cried, incredulous and unable to keep his voice down.

“Barty is here!” Narcissa hissed warningly. “Do not be fooled, Potter, Sirius. The Dark Lord is ready for whatever we may have all planned against him.”

“Keep your head down,” James muttered. “I get it. ‘Long as he doesn’t hurt anyone.”

She nodded at someone coming up behind Sirius and James. “Lucius and Evan believe he will not show until all of the Purebloods are gathered for a demonstration of his might.”

Lucius, ridiculous-looking in spring wearing fancy fox-fur-trimmed dress robes and thick cloak, nodded in greeting as he came up to them, Rosier hot on his heels. “If the Dark Lord wishes to make an example of the Blacks at this spectacle, this place is going to be a bloodbath.”

Rosier’s straight pointed nose and heavy-lidded eyes scanned the crowd. “Every single member of the Sacred Twenty-Eight families are here. And you’ve not seen the security.”

Lucius grimaced at Sirius and James’ cocked brows. “Dementors.”

“Fuck,” James breathed. “No wonder the air feels more funereal than festive. How many do you think?”

“At least a dozen that I’ve seen,” Lucius replied. “Father is talking to the Auror heading security. If the dementors get out of control for any reason, people stand to lose more than just their lives.”

“Bella wished for it this way,” Narcissa told them. “Cyril Lestrange, it seems, strong-armed the DMLE Head for the security.”

Sirius gave a little sigh. “I suppose this means we’re all going to die.”

James huffed. “Not if my dad has anything to say about it.” He nodded his head in the direction Fleamont had gone after leaving his wife to mind their two charges. “Looks like Crouch is going to feel the might of the Potter name before a Wizengamot meeting even starts session.”

Sirius might have laughed as Fleamont Potter’s aura of power, the same they’d all seen in the hospital wing when he’d bullied Dumbledore and Slughorn into releasing Harry into his care, swelled as the two men talked heatedly, but two things seemed to have happened at once.

A cry of dismay shot through the crowd of women gathered near Bellatrix at the dais as the crack of Apparition tore through the heavy wards and a tall, slender man in plain but obviously expensive black formal robes appeared on the dais next to Bellatrix and Rodolphus. Sirius thought he might have been a handsome young man once, if the cruel set of his sharp, scarred and burned jaw, and the frigid, unfeeling glint in his dark eyes, blacker than the obsidian on Bellatrix’s hand, didn’t detract from his appearance. He carried with him an air of self-possessed power and an ancient sort of evil as his waxy, once-attractive face broke into a smile that sent chills down Sirius’ spine.

Whispers erupted as the gathered crowd of witches and wizards in all their formal finery recognized the man who was rumored to be behind the worst and most brutal of attacks on the peaceful wizarding populace of Britain since the start of the decade.

“It’s him!” Rosier whispered, awed, but Sirius didn’t hear him for at the same time, the air was filled with the screaming sound of rubber screeching on cold black stone, followed immediately by the loud, mournful baying of a dire wolf, drowning out the whispers of awe at Voldemort’s appearance.

“Harry!” Sirius cried as the heavy wards shimmered and parted for Harry sitting astride a massive hulking black steel and silver chrome motorcycle that Sirius had once salivated over and determined to purchase for himself once he finished school. Hot on the wheels of his ride, Moony followed, his tawny fur rippling with his loping gait.

Sirius couldn’t believe his eyes at how unapologetically _cool_ Harry had become. The bike was the piece de resistance, of course, but Sirius recognized his leather jacket from the Halloween Ball on Harry’s shoulders, covering a white dress shirt, a thin black tie, and tailored dark denims. He’d dressed for the wedding, but seemed to decide halfway that he didn’t really give a shit. He was thinner now than ever before, more gaunt, but his face, unshaven with a five o’clock shadow, was still more handsome than Sirius had ever found anyone else to be.

“What is the meaning of this?!” Bellatrix’s scream at Arcturus rent the hush that had fallen at Harry’s entrance. “Grandfather, why do you have a _half-blood_ in my most joyous occasion?”

“Voldemort!” Harry shouted as he dismounted his bike and approached, Moony on his heels, golden eyes glowing threateningly at anyone who dared approach or block Harry’s path to the dais.

Voldemort’s cruel dark eyes flicked to Harry just as Sirius, James, Regulus and Narcissa moved to surround him. Ten paces away, Fleamont had his wand out. Euphemia had stood from her seat, her eyes hard and determined from beneath the netted veil hanging over her pillbox hat.

“Bellatrix, I did not know your family associated with filth,” he said, voice soft and sibilant, but audible to every wizard and witch gathered in the abbey grounds.

“You dare cast aspersions and judgment on the primacy of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black?” Arcturus’ voice rang out as he climbed up the dais, wand in his outstretched hand. “There is no filth in this gathering here other than you, murdering son of a muggle swine!”

Arcturus may or may not have intended to cast a spell to banish Voldemort from the gathering had Bellatrix not thrown herself at the dark wizard, draping worshipful hands at the hem of the robes on his feet.

“Get up, Bellatrix,” Arcturus demanded. “No Black kowtows to the will of a half-blood of the most suspect parentage, cursed child of a squib raping a muggle, the murderer of your noble, Pureblooded sister! Filth is too pure a word to describe this excrement of a pureblood wizarding line.”

Bellatrix screamed as a spell Sirius didn’t recognize zapped through Arcturus’ wand towards Voldemort. Sirius bolted towards his grandfather’s side; he will allow no retaliation. He was Heir Black, and it was his duty to protect his grandfather, and everyone who carried the Black name. He wanted none of this legacy but the innate magic that swirled in his veins would allow no harm upon the currently sitting Lord Black.

“You will not keep me from him!” Bellatrix screamed. She tugged the lacy sleeve on her left hand, exposing something dark and sinister, a skull and a snake image, writhing, etched into her skin, and touched her wand to it, activating its innate magic. The wards fell, Sirius could hear pops of Apparition as silver-masked Death Eaters in ominous black robes swarmed into the abbey grounds. Bellatrix was not done. “You will not take me from my master! _Protego Diabolica!”_

Black fire erupted from her wand just as the Death Eaters that had appeared in the crowd started throwing curses at the panicked wedding guests, and pandemonium reigned.

Later, when the writers for the Daily Prophet started interviewing witnesses, and the Aurors started interrogating the rounded up suspects that were still alive, very few could actually recall the entire sequence of events that led to what rising star Prophet correspondent Rita Skeeter called a Pureblood Culling. Later, many whom had been in attendance could recall only snippets:

The screams of society women as their ostentatious gowns and dress robes burned in the conflagration, forcing them to strip and abandon their clothing and leave thousands of galleons in silk, taffeta, and fine crushed velvet smoldering in the wreckage. The frantic yells of Protection Shield spells from wizards and witches desperate to protect their children. The bellows of offensive spells cast by Aurors overwhelmed by the numbers of Death Eaters and other dark creatures come to the wedding, summoned by the unholy spell Bellatrix Black had cast on the strange snake and skull tattoo on her left forearm. The shrieks of young children cowering against their parents’ skirts, or fearfully clutching their fathers’ hands. The murderous zap and zing of Unforgivables from the wands of masked attackers, cruel and eager for pain and blood.

In the chaos that ensued, Fleamont Potter was separated from his son, and two other charges as he fought, three against one, with the masked attackers, fighting to get to his wife and frantic to find and get away with his charges. The Death Eaters had brought all manner of dark magical creatures to fight their fight: chimera that blasted cursed fire from their dragon heads and fighting tooth and nail with the snapping, bloodied jaws of the lion head, cold black magic in language never learned by even the most ambitious, power-hungry wizards, uttered from the goat head, three headed infernal dogs that had been said to guard the threshold that led to the gates of hell, massive, venomous, seven-headed hydra that attacked and poisoned any who dared come fight in close quarters with the Death Eaters that handled them.

No one, it seemed, could Apparate out. Whatever spell Bellatrix had uttered collapsed the Anti-Apparition and muggle repelling wards, and replaced them instead with Anti-Disapparition spells that cracked and shimmered and held whenever someone attempted to flee the scene using magic. Nearby muggles who had been enjoying the calm rolling greens of Greenwich park were drawn to the sudden appearance of a hulking black Gothic structure looming in the skyline and blotting out the sun. They were picked off by packs of gigantic manticores controlled by vicious echidna, their naked torsos and exposed breasts scandalizing muggles and wizards alike, directing death and destruction in the periphery. Dementors feasted on the terror and chaos and destruction, like maggots feasting on death and rotted remains. Someone’s stag Patronus stampeded out to chase after Dementors sucking souls out of terrified unsuspecting muggles. Another Patronus, this time aimed to the darkening sky, zipped and disappeared into the horizon.

Death and chaos reigned supreme. Wizards blasted off the face of the earth with disintegration spells. Witches burned with black fire. Small children ripped from their dead mothers’ breasts and hurled into the air before being speared with Killing Curses. They were dead before they hit the ground. It was long minutes of the air smelling of death and ozone and poison before reinforcements in the form of the order of the Phoenix, headed by none other than Albus Dumbledore astride invisible flying thestrals arrived to help the beleaguered guests and Aurors containing the bloodbath. By then, a tenth of the Pureblood families of the Sacred Twenty Eight had been utterly decimated, lines gone extinct, as dead bodies littered the blood-soaked stones of Blackheath Abbey.

Harry had lived in the same fugue that had enveloped him before Christmas hols in the ensuing days after he and Moony returned from the Gaunt Shack. He spent long days hidden away in the privacy of the Room of Requirement, which mercifully did not grant entry to James or Lily when they tried to search him out. At night, he snuck out of the castle with Moony and Gris, roughing the nights out in hollowed out logs of fallen trees in the Forbidden Forest, or in the network of caves in the outskirts of Hogsmeade that the Sirius in his timeline had hidden outwhen he went to meet with Harry back in fourth year when Harry doubted he would live through the trials of the Triwizard Tournament.

It was on one such early morning, when his daze was interrupted by the roaring sound of a diesel motor thundering in the sky above the cave he’d hidden away to wait for Moony’s frolic about the forest in the night. A hulking black and chrome motorcycle spiraled down from the sky, sitting astride was the cool blond head of a black-robed Draco Malfoy, his fiendish smirk proud and mischievous as he alighted the magical motorcycle which Harry was _sure_ did not exist in this timeline yet. Sirius had never gotten back his bike from Hagrid in Harry’s timeline. Hagrid had used the bike in the mad flight from Privet Drive on Harry’s seventeenth birthday. Where that bike had gone to after Harry had gone into hiding to hunt the horcruxes, Harry didn’t know, but evidently, Malfoy from his originating timeline had gotten his prissy Pureblood supremacist hands on it as he left it standing on its own magic, engine still gunning, as he stood and grinned triumphantly at Harry.

“ _Nice piece of enchanted muggle machinery your godfather left you here,_ ” Draco said smugly as Harry gaped at him, daze ripped apart by the noise of the gunning engine. “ _Found it hidden out in the shed of your fortress of a house in Islington. Did you inherit that from the Black family too? Draco must be dying of jealousy from all that you stood to inherit when your godfather died._ ” He shook his head when Harry didn’t react and just continued staring. “ _Well, stop goggling like a fish out of water! You have a quest to complete! Draco wants his life back! I’d like to have my mantle and magic back! You being my master has resulted in a fair bit of time lost, even though time is but a construct for beings such as you and me. And yes, you do look like a dunce, though I’m sure even a little godling such as you can understand the basic precepts of time and urgency, seeing as how your preciously cherished Grim-Seer is about to meet his doom at the hands of your nemesis’ lover._ ”

Harry’s eyes widened and he scrambled up from the dirt floor of the cave, galvanized into action at the barest hint that Sirius’ life was in danger. _He_ may not value his own life anymore, but Sirius was different. This was a timeline for Harry to set things right so his godfather could live the life he was meant to, without Azkaban, without the war, without death.

“The wedding is today?!”

Draco rolled his eyes, utterly annoyed. “ _Yes, Harry Potter, the wedding is today. And you would remember that if you lived a life something close to a human these days instead of consigning yourself to the wild. Your dire wolf and grootslang can live amongst people, you know. They’re far more intelligent creatures than most wizards._ ”

“Fuck, I have to get back to Hogwarts!” He gripped the Elder Wand, ready to rip through the wards again to rush to prevent Sirius from marching off into what was certainly going towards his doom if he went to the Lestrange Wedding.

“ _Your friends have already gone, little godling,_ ” Draco said, bored. “ _Now, you need to go too, but not before…” He cut himself off, grabbing Harry by the front of his t-shirt and pulling him flush against his thin body with a smirk. “Ah, I love the smell of your trepidation and self-hatred whenever your arousal for this body strikes. Malfoy attracts you in some strange visceral manner, but your heart belongs to the Grim-Seer, and you hate yourself for feeling torn between both._ ” He gripped Harry’s chin with unyielding hands. “ _Don’t be shy, little godling. I told you this is how my magic works on this plane of existence. Even young Malfoy accepted it._ ”

Harry didn’t dare breath or even mount a struggle as Draco pressed his lips against his, a cool tingle warming over his unwashed body and dirt-streaked hair. It was a bit like a Cinderella effect, only with Draco as this horribly sexual fairy godmother who transformed Harry’s torn, dirty t-shirt and jeans into a dressy shirt, dark denim, and a thin black tie, and cleaned up his gritty unwashed odious body into something resembling a human again.

“ _Something’s missing here,_ ” Draco said, pushing him back and looking him over, before brightening and shrugging the black leather jacket that covered his shoulders. Harry had a vague recollection of the Sirius in his timeline wearing this jacket around Grimmauld Place, prowling for something useful to do. A more recent memory of teenage Sirius of _this_ timeline superseded that as he sulked in a corner table amid costumed people dancing in the Halloween Ball. So _that_ had been the origin of Sirius’ leather jacket. Harry accepted it from Draco and pulled it on swiftly, before gathering Griselda, who had been dozing on a warmed rock near where Harry lay, and stuffing her under the collar of the starched dress shirt, as he hastily laced up his boots and tried to arrange his hair in some semblance of order.

“What about Remus?” he asked when Draco gestured to the bike with a flourish and a bow.

“ _You must truly be unlearned of the ways of creatures of death and legend not to know that the dire wolf appears wherever the Master of Death appears,_ ” he muttered strangely. “ _Your wolf will follow through the corridors of magic not accessible even to wizards that hold that wondrous of all wands.” He ushered Harry onto the motorcycle, with purred loudly at its true owner from the timeline it came from. “Come now, don’t be late. Voldemort is no prince charming, and I have soul fragments to collect from Magic’s wayward son._ ”

Draco sent him a flying kiss as Harry watched him disappear into a tiny black and blond form as the motorbike soared up heavenward, headed back towards England. He didn’t know where Blackheath Abbey was, but the bike apparently had a mind of its own, enchanted as it was from another timeline, and speed him and Griselda towards their destiny, one he needed to fulfill, but more importantly, one he needed to see to its final conclusion, without James and Sirius ever coming to harm.

When he arrived, it was to panic and pandemonium as Bellatrix cried out her protest at his presence, and at her grandfather’s insistence that she leave Voldemort’s side. She was already Marked, Harry could see, though Lestrange, surprisingly was not, even though he brandished his wand against Arcturus as Bellatrix threw herself at Voldemort’s feet. Harry didn’t know the spell she used that created the wild black inferno that blazed around the dais. It was not Fiendfyre, but perhaps its dark and protective sister, just as capricious and volatile and difficult to control.

He needed to find the Horcruxes— there were two of them. He was certain the Cup would be here, somewhere in the esoteric magical paraphernalia laid out on the pulpit to be used by the officiator, but it was hard to see through the roar of the black conflagration.

Narcissa was at his side, screaming that Arcturus and Sirius were trapped in the circle of black flame with Bellatrix, Rodolphus and Voldemort. James, on his other side, whipped out his wand and deflected curses aimed at the three of them by the the gathering Death Eaters that had appeared in the midst of the wedding attendees. Behind him, Lucius and Rosier gathered what they could of the younger Pureblood children abandoned by their panicked parents. A number of the other students Harry remembered from Lucius’ meeting—Selwyn and Fawley, the Prewett twins and Macnair, Regulus with his dark emerald robes whipping about him as he cast vicious red and purple spells that crackled lightning and fire against advancing Death Eaters and dark creatures, gravitated towards them. Still further away, Moony the Dire Wolf had appeared by magic beyond wizard understanding, shielding the gathered teenagers with his hulking canine body impervious to most wizard spells, goring vicious three-headed dogs from the gates of hell and ruthlessly attacking dark creatures that strayed too close to the group of teens.

“Narcissa, the Cup!” Harry yelled as his Sectumsempra caught a massive winged chimera hurtling in their direction. The creature fell to the ground, its massive, three-headed body bleeding black blood that burned like liquid fire any who came into contact. “You know what it looks like! It’s here, your sister must have it!”

Narcissa cast frantically trying to see through the fire. “There! On the pulpit!” She pointed and would have hurled herself through the unforgiving black flame had Lucius not thrown himself from where he stood to keep her from trying to break through.

“It’s Protego Diabolica, Cissa! It’ll kill you!” he yelled as he held her close. Narcissa struggled, vicious and determined to get to her destination.

“My sister cast it! She will not hurt me!”

“It will kill you, Bellatrix sees no reason to protect anyone but her vaunted Dark Lord!” Lucius insisted, holding her back from the unbearable heat of the black flames.

“Patter!” she screamed for Harry, before turning and locking eyes at her sister, who exulted in the carnage in the middle of the spellfire as Voldemort cast some sort of curse against Arcturus and Sirius. “Patter, Grandfather and Sirius—!”

Harry couldn’t see through the thick smoke and black fire. He could hear Sirius screaming in pain, words unintelligible as Voldemort’s Cruciatus coursed through his body as he tried to protect his grandfather from the three-pronged attack from the insane newly wedded couple and Voldemort. He tried to use the Elder Wand to part the flames to no avail. James cast a spell to dissipate the smoke, yelling curses to try to break through the wall of magical flame.

“Get the Cup!” Harry yelled. “I’ll try to find a way through the fire!”

Narcissa turned back to her sister, her blue eyes blazing with fury as Bellatrix laughed maniacally as she twisted her wand to intensify the Cruciatus she had over Arcturus. “ _IMPERIO!_ ”

Bellatrix’s Cruciatus ended, sending the old man limp to the ground. Her dark eyes flittered around, in panicked search of who had gotten through her protective wall of flame. Betrayal sparked a wildfire behind her eyes as Narcissa locked and battled with her in a contest of wills. Her impotent scream tore through the shouts and explosions outside the ring of fire as she marched against her will, plucking the little golden Cup from the podium. It blazed red and black tendrils of magic, fighting Narcissa’s will as Bellatrix tossed it into the flames. A loud, penetrating screech rent the air, sending some of the dark creatures fleeing in a panicked frenzy.

Harry hadn’t expected the unknown black flame to destroy the Horcrux, but the gold started to melt and warp in the flames. Black blood oozed from the ridges in the metal where the jewels were inlaid in the Hufflepuff crest, and that insubstantial black mist that made up the Horcrux shivered out of the puddled slag of the metal, screaming once, that unearthly scream that echoed through the recesses of the minds of every wizard, witch, muggle and magical creature resounding once, before dissipating into nothingness as the gold of the Cup melted completely and disintegrated into the black fire.

“NO!!!” Voldemort screeched, snapping his wand away from Sirius, breaking the torture curse and sending Sirius limp on the ground, twitching next to his grandfather’s unmoving form. Harry could see black and gold glinting from his wand hand. The ring! He was wearing it! Harry needed a way through the fire, but everything it touched turned instantly into ashes and were carried out by the whipping wind of the gathering storm clouds in the horizon.

Bellatrix hurled herself towards her master, Narcissa’s Imperius broken by the scream of the Hurcrux. “This is your fault, old man!” she yelled at Arcturus, kicking his body away from a twitching, crying, tear- and blood-streaked Sirius. Arcturus let out a low groan as he grappled with shuddering hands for his wand and shuffled to his feet. It was amazing, the fortitude of the old dark wizard, how he clung to life and sanity amidst the chaos, blood and pain. “This disaster would not have occurred had you not blocked my service to my master. _Avada Kedavra!”_

The flash of green zinged through air thick with smoke and flame and hit true, exploding across Arcturus’ chest. He was dead before he hit the ground. It was Sirius’ turn to scream in despair.

“Grandfather!”

Harry, James and Lucius joined the powers of their spells in an attempt to break through the flames as Rodolphus and Bellatrix raised their wands, ready to murder the Heir Black as Sirius cried over his grandfather’s lifeless body. They didn’t expect to succeed, even as others turned their wands from the carnage outside the dais to try to break Bellatrix’s out of control spell. Harry didn’t expect Moony to break off where he had been locked in mortal combat with another transformed wolf, one Harry knew well from his days of fighting in the war that Fenrir Greyback was one of the few werewolves who could transform at will. Moony had completely gored him, his massive jaws snapping, dripping with blood from the defeated werewolf, whose entrails were ripped out of a gaping wound on its still-pulsing stomach.

The Dire wolf leaped, clear over the tall columns of flame, his fur barely singed as he landed and caught Rodolphus Lestrange, opened his huge, blood-soaked maw and ripped the wizard’s head clean off his shoulders.

Bellatrix screamed as she and Voldemort turned their wands, casting their death magic Unforgivables at Moony. But Moony was a creature now born of Death’s magic. Wizarding spells no longer affected him as his body answered to a different beat of Magic flowing in his lifeblood. He braced on powerful hind legs, ready to snap and kill, but Sirius stopped his friend, his grey eyes swollen red and still blurry with tears as he picked himself up to his feet. His dapper suit was ruined, blood and sweat staining the fancy jacquard into a stiff, dull, rust-colored red. He held up his wand and pointed it at his cousin.

“You dare kill the Lord Black, whose grace made it even possible for you to consider this farce of a ceremony!” His voice was soft, gaining power through his tears as he addressed his cousin.

“I dare, little blood traitor! I dare because the magic in my veins, the purity of my blood, the nobility of my name, gives me the power to!” Bellatrix laughed, derisive and crazed, her elegant wedding robes hanging in tatters and soaked in the spray of Rodolphus’ blood when Moony had ripped his head off and sent it rolling down the dais like a gruesome football, stopping at the feet of some Death Eater who’d taken one look at the head and bolted away in panic.

“You do not deserve the noble name of Black, Bella! That you would side with this monster who has killed your sister—your _sister_ who was innocent of any wrongdoing, who your lord and master deemed unworthy to continue living by virtue only of the fact that she had seen what a true monster he is. Your _sister_ who is a Pureblood, Bella! The Purebloods you swore had a right to supremacy over muggles! Look at what your craziness has wrought to us! Look at all the dead of the Sacred Twenty-Eight! You don’t deserve the Black name, cousin, if only because you have soiled it beyond whatever blasted purity our forefathers have declared.” Sirius raised his wand, his voice rising in pitch and volume as he channeled his magic into a spell Harry had never quite seen used before, as family magic was a dying art, hidden and reserved to the Lords and Ladies and Heirs who carried the family name.

Harry didn’t know the spell but it blasted out of Sirius’ wand silver and relentless and true. The silver light engulfed Bellatrix, powered by the overwhelming, hate-filled feelings of betrayal that Sirius used to power the spell as the new Lord Black, and she collapsed to the floor, a marionette with her strings cut. Harry watched, horrified as the spell pulsed and writhed at her heaving breast, devouring that spark of gold light that was her magical core, leaching her powers until none was left, and she was no different than the muggles she despised and hated.

“You are no Black, Bellatrix,” Sirius intoned, vicious and deadly as he stood before her, flanked by the grizzled, battle-hardened Dire Wolf protecting him from Voldemort’s curses. “You are no Black and you deserve neither the purity of our blood, nor the nobility of our name. You are _nothing_. And as nothing, you deserve none of our magic.”

With the fire of her magic gone, the diabolical flames she’d conjured and powered through her madness fizzled and dissipated. The drama of the disownment of the bride, the killing of the groom, seemed to have enthralled the combatants in the abbey, but now that two of his loyal followers were gone, Voldemort sought to consolidate his power in a bid to stem the tide of the battle.

“To me, my loyal followers who swear your hearts to darkness!” he screamed as he raised his wand into the air. Death Eaters broke off from the skirmishes they fought against civilians and Aurors alike. The dark creatures they’d brought with them left off haranguing muggles and helpless children and skulked forward to the dais where their master called. Dementors feasting on the terrified and unsuspecting floated to the throng of the fighting, heeding the call of a powerful dark master.

Harry couldn’t let him unleash this horror on any more of the remaining wizards and witches, bedraggled from the extended magical battle. So many dead, so many injured… he’d thought to end this conflict to avoid the bloodshed of the Battle of Hogwarts. And yet here he was, standing in another battlefield, with the bodies of the dead littering the cold grey flagstones, a different time and a different location, but the same amount of blood spilt, the same number of promising lives lost.

He firmed his grip on the Elder Wand, which practically vibrated in his hand, singing and exulting and ready to do battle and wreak mass destruction, but James stayed his hand, pointing.

“The ring, Harry! He still has the ring!”

Voldemort had his hands outstretched, as if to welcome all of his dark followers as they bowed to him and he gave them leave to rampage and pillage and destroy everyone in sight. Around them, Harry could see the survivors of the fight, blood-streaked and weary. Fleamont limped close with an exhausted Euphemia, who’d been using her magic to heal the wounded. Crouch Sr had resumed fighting against the oncoming Death Eaters. Aurors conjured Patronuses to keep away the dementors from a cluster of viciously fighting but frightened teenagers Harry recognized as Crouch Jr, Dolohov, and Mulciber. On the ground, dead between them, was Rookwood, struck dead by a Reductor Curse flung by the Lord Greengrass as he attempted to protect his daughter from attack. Further away, Dumbledore and a few of the other members of the Order of the Phoenix, most of whom Harry only knew from old photographs as they’d likely died during the first Wizarding War, fought off Death Eaters, dark wizards, dementors and dark creatures alike.

The old Headmaster caught Harry’s eye, his twinkling blue eyes blazing as he gave a sharp nod. A cry both melodious and terrifying resounded in the air as Fawkes, Dumbledore’s phoenix sped through the air, plucking the grotty looking tall wizard’s hat from the old headmaster’s head and dropping it into James’ outstretched hand.

“The Sorting Hat?” he exclaimed, utterly boggled. “What the hell would I do with—“

“The sword!” Harry cried, gunning forwards and tackling Sirius to the ground just as the red flash of a Transmogrifian Torture curse exploded against the wall behind him. “Fuck, James, get the sword!”

Evidently, the Sorting Hat knew better than to rely on the befuddled responses of the terrified teenager and dropped the Sword of Gryffindor directly into James’ open hand, causing him to nearly drop it. He stared at the blaze of light in the ruby-encrusted hilt for a moment, before drawing back his powerful arm, honed to precise throwing perfection from years of playing and obsessing over Quidditch, and hurled the sword in the direction of Voldemort’s wand hand. If this had been a Quidditch game, James’ throw would have been the sort that spectators would rejoice and cherish and replay in their omnioculars for weeks afterwards, so precise and accurate and true was the arc the sword made in the air, slashing through the flash of curses and counterspells, and catching and slicing off Voldemort’s wand had neatly and precisely.

The dark wizard roared in pain and blood sprayed over Harry and Sirius. Sirius appeared to have gone into shock over the gruesome display, his face spattered with blood so thick, Harry could barely see the creamy perfection of his skin. The severed hand dropped at their feet, and Harry pried the stiffening waxy fingers open and grabbed the ring, while the wand leapt from the hand into Voldemort’s other working hand, and hurling a green flash of Unforgivable Curse in James’ direction. Moony leapt and tackled his best friend to the ground, along with Rosier and Lucius, the spell instantly killing the chimera that had been lobbing fire and dark creature magic at Narcissa.

Gris, for the first time, slithered out of the collar of Harry’s shirt, her tongue twitching as she tasted the air. “ _Use the stick, Speaker! Kill it before it attacks you!”_

Harry focused on the small, leathery face of his grootslang, even as his wand was trained on the ring in his hand. The Elder Wand seemed to sing and vibrate as he closed his eyes and hissed the spell in Parseltongue, “ _Avada Kedavra!”_

The Horcrux drew out of the gold and the black Resurrection Stone, called into being by the language Voldemort used to part the soul fragment from his being. Green light from Harry’s Killing Curse enveloped the Horcrux, shriveling it as it writhed against the power of the spell powered by the essence of Death in Harry. Once again, the scream of the Horcrux rent the air, piercing and shrill as it tried to tear through the power of the spell. But there was no earthly magic that could protect against the Killing Curse, and the spell snuffed out the Horcrux before it had a chance of fighting back. The stone fell from its inlaid divot in the ring, onto Harry’s palm, and he gripped it close, reaching into one of the studded, zippered pockets of the leather jacket to retrieve the Cloak. Once again, he was Master of Death.

And the Master had come to collect the final piece of the soul Death yearned for in every timeline and every reality that Harry faced.

He stood, leaving Sirius crouched to the ground. His green eyes blazed with the otherworldly glow that had once been a mark of overpowered magic, but was now powered by the esoteric, eldritch power of Death and its sister, Magic.

“Infidel!” Voldemort declared, hate blazing red in his dark eyes as he raised his left hand, holding his yew wand. “You will not win! My followers will triumph over this rabble of pretentious, helpless, insipid Pureblood wizards, whose only redeeming characteristic is that they are sheep, whose minds bend and bow easily to the powers that I have sought and gained!”

He pointed his wand at Narcissa, first for betraying her sister, who lay on the floor of the dais where her wedding was to take place, broken and utterly without magic. “ _Avada Kedavra!”_

Harry’s wand hand twitched, and a silver Shield spell shimmered in front of Narcissa, deflecting the curse as it crackled and disappeared, the ancient magic from the Elder Wand far superior to the earthly death magic of a living wizard.

“My followers!” Voldemort cried, once again holding his glowing wand aloft. “Kill the nameless infidel, whose filthy blood dare desecrate this hallowed ground with his presence!”

What remained of the Death Eaters turned, holding their wands aloft, but something in the teenage boy’s blazing eyes stayed their wand hands, shriveled their curses in their throats. Around them, the dark creatures that they’d gathered to wreak devastation and catastrophe hissed and shrank at the shroud of power of the Master of Death, he whose magical prowess bound and enslaved Death’s powers to his core, favored by Magic, bowed to by Time and Existence and all the realms of Reality. The dementors who had gathered around Voldemort genuflected on ghostly limbs, bowing to the magnificence of their master’s Master. Harry had seen it before, in Dumbledore’s office, where the dementor refused to obey Crouch. They refused to obey Voldemort now, and Harry’s will bent them to his desires as they moved as one, rising off the blood-soaked grounds of the abbey, into the air, and then breaking apart and disappearing, bringing the heavy fog of storm clouds with them. At the dementors’ departure, the dark creatures slunk away, some burrowing into the ground, using their unique brand of creature magic, afraid that the wrath of the Master of Death be turned on them. Beside James, the Dire Wolf sank into a crouch, covering Moony’s gold eyes, as if he too could see the whip of power that emanated from and surrounded Harry.

“No,” Harry said as he easily deflected another Curse, this time aimed at Sirius, whom Harry loved… adored… worshipped… beyond the bounds of human earthly love. The curse exploded, and the Shield spell enveloped Sirius in ghostly, otherworldly silver light. “You have wreaked havoc beyond the bounds of human imagination, Tom. This ends now.”

He raised the Elder Wand and let the power of the Hallows, the awesome, terrifying magnificence of Death and Magic suffuse him, enter him, _become_ him. When he opened his mouth, the spell that poured forth was in the same ancient tongue spoken by the Old Ones, whose being bound the earthly world of muggles and wizards. His voice was terrible and frightening to hear as Death spoke through the mouth of its Master:

“ _Cahf ah nafl mglw'nafh hh' ahor syha'h ah'legeth, ng llll or'azath syha'hnahh n'ghftephai n'gha ahornah ah'mglw'nafh!_ ”*

The magic that leapt from the Elder Wand was all colors and none, exulting in the culling of the final piece of soul Death was bound and determined to retrieve. It enveloped and enshrouded Voldemort, still screaming his defiance and disbelief at being mastered by the Master of Death himself. Harry watched wordlessly as little by little, the spell ate and burned at Voldemort’s waxy skin, burning him away until he was nothing more than dust and ashes, blown away in the darkening descent of night, as daylight started to fade and moon rise loomed heavy and low in the dusky rose and purples of the springtime horizon.

“It’s over,” he whispered, whether to himself or to Sirius, who gazed up at him with something akin to thunderstruck awe, as he lowered the Elder Wand.

Around them, the Death Eaters had gone into a frenzied panic to try to escape from the Aurors and the members of the Order. The dark creatures they’d brought with them had all but gone. Blackheath Abbey was scarred and leveled, the heavy turrets and spires crumbling to rock and dust in the chaos and explosions of spell fire. There were countless dead on both sides of the conflict, but the ones Harry loved the most, the ones he’d fought and killed for—they remained standing, bowed and blood-soaked and hardened in battle, but ultimately thankful that the war was won.

James helped Lucius get Narcissa laid down onto Lucius’ fancy fur-lined cloak. She’d been injured by a rampaging hydra. Gris descended from Harry’s neck and sped towards her, sinking her fangs and injecting her with her healing venom. Rosier was being seen to by Fawley and Greengrass. The Prewett twins were holding down Dolohov and Mulciber in joined Body-Bind curses.

Moony trotted over to Sirius, who was favoring his left leg, which still twitched from the many and lengthy Cruciatus Curses he’d been subjected. The Dire Wolf’s golden eyes looked forlorn as he nuzzled Arcturus’ body, and Sirius grabbed the dead lord’s torn cloak to shroud his body within, his eyes bloodshot and blurred with tears. Down at the tables, Sirius’ father huddled with Cygnus and Druella Black, who’d lost two daughters now, one dead by Voldemort’s machinations, and the other losing her magic and disowned from the Black family. Walburga had died, killed by errant black magic of the echidna that had been herding manticores to poison unsuspecting wizards and witches.

“Sirius…” Harry said softly as his godfather raised his penitent, tear-streaked face, his hair, previously styled in soft dark waves now hanging ragged and streaked with blood and guts and gore. He was still so beautiful, even soaked in gore the way he was. Harry reached to touch his face gently, worshipfully.

“Fuck, I love you so much you unimaginably amazing arsehole!” Sirius sobbed as he threw himself into the circle of Harry’s arms.

Harry held him close, reveling in the feel of him in his arms, that unmistakable _Sirius_ smell and essence of him. He hadn’t dared hope that he would live through this battle, but he had and he had Sirius with him, and fuck— “I love you,” he whispered in his ear and Sirius cried harder.

They were so lost in each other’s arms that neither of them noticed that Bellatrix had woken from the fugue that had enveloped her when Sirius destroyed her magical core with the family disownment spell.

“It’s not over yet!” she shrieked, scrambling to her feet before anyone could stop her. Harry should have known, should have remembered from the time he, Ron and Hermione had been captured by Snatchers and taken to Malfoy Manor. Bellatrix had a knife that she hid in a strap at her ankle and she drew this and in a single fluid motion, sank the knife in the middle of Harry’s back.

Pain and blood bloomed like wildfire in his blood. He could feel his eyes dilating, his magic swirling around him and Sirius as Sirius let out a horrified cry.

“That’s my son, you bitch!” James yelled, and a Stunning Spell zapped through the air and hit Bellatrix square on her blood-spattered forehead, but the damage was done.

Harry could feel his knees weakening, his heart pumping double time to keep his muscles alive, even as it meant more blood welled out of the wound in his back. He blinked as he staggered in Sirius’ arms, and fell. The darkening night sky filled his vision, the blazing colors of sunset red-tinged as he felt his lifeblood well out of him. His vision dimmed and it felt like his ears were roaring. He could sense nothing and no one except for Sirius’ cries, tears pouring out of eyes that he’d thought had been all cried out. And then from a distance, white blond hair and impeccable robes billowing in the night wind like black wings that threatened to blot out the stars in the sky.

“I’m not at King’s Cross yet, am I?” he asked Draco, his voice resigned.

“ _No, but you’re on your way there soon,”_ Draco said, his voice gentle. Movement in Harry’s periphery. He could barely feel anything. “ _You need to let him go, Grim. The Champion has won his battles. Now we proceed to pyrrhic victory.”_

“Please don’t take him away from me,” Sirius sobbed, his fingers clutching Harry close to his chest.

“ _I’m afraid I can’t do that. The Master of Death must return to the realm of the Old Ones, to heal the rifts in magic his creation has caused.”_

“No… please…”

Harry sighed tiredly. He wished he had the strength to pull up a hand and catch the tears, little diamonds that spilled from the galaxy in Sirius’ eyes. But he was so tired. He could see King’s Cross tunneling in the horizon.

“If I’m yet to reach King’s Cross,” he told Draco in a voice so faint, he could barely hear himself above rushing of blood in his ears, “make my death count.”

A ripple of blond hair was all he could sense. “ _The Dire Wolf. You wish for him to be released?”_

“He still has a life ahead of him. I don’t want to take it away.”

White light, warm and comforting enveloped his tired, beaten form. He couldn’t wait for this long awaited rest. So much loss and grief and the vagaries of war and fate tearing him apart. He wished it didn’t have to end the way it did, if only so he could spare Sirius this heartache and loss as he traded his life for that of another boy who deserved so much more than a life consigned to remaining a monster.

Harry was gone before Remus Lupin, the Dire Wolf crouching next to James’ grief-shattered form, morphed back into the body of a tawny-haired, freckle-faced, naked boy, free of the dark esoteric magic of Death that had once saved his life. Now he slept, unaware of the chaos and sorrow and grief that swirled around him, as James and Sirius and Regulus and Narcissa cried, as the Aurors picked off the Death Eaters, and the remaining Purebloods gathered and huddled in the cool spring night.

Draco turned to Sirius, the ancient depths of his grey gaze drowning as he looked at the sobbing teenager kindly. _“Whatever happiness and joy was in his life, Grim, came from the magic. Harry Potter’s life is despair and war and grief, but the magic sustained him, made him whole, gave him you. So, to the magic, I give you.”**_

A pyrrhic victory indeed.

* * *

The Malfoy cellars smelled of oak and wine and the stench of looming death, old and decrepit and years in waiting.

Draco Malfoy hung, suspended by a rope that bit into the tender skin of his stiffening neck as he watched the battles and the drama of the 1st of March 1978. The images seemed to flit, ghostlike and discordant behind his closed eyelids. Harry Potter had won. He’d won Draco the wager. Draco could not wait for his life to be rebuilt, for his wife and his mother and father and his precious Scorpius to come bounding out and greet him back to life.

Death appeared, walking through the closed door of the cellars, a magical formless being that wore Draco’s face. “ _Well, it seems you bet on the right Champion._ ”

It was hard to grin smugly when one was suspended by one’s broken neck, but Draco was good at managing to convey his triumph, for there’d been so few of those in his lifetime. “Sometimes, even _I_ manage to get things right.”

“ _Indeed, indeed_ ,” Death said. “ _And now your due, little lord Malfoy.”_

Draco steeled himself for his body to be healed, for his life to be reordered, for 2017 to roll back and provide him a time when he was happy, with Astoria, with Scorpius, hell, even with his crazy, bigoted parents.

Instead he found himself in swirling darkness, 2017 collapsing all around him, an illusion Death had maintained. There was no 2017. Not since Harry Potter had thrown himself back in time. In the distance, a tunnel of white, leading to what appeared to be King’s Cross, rushed inexorably to Draco.

King’s Cross. The threshold of life and death.

He turned to Death, his rage towering at having been duped. “You tricked me!”

Death looked at him like he felt infinitely sorry for Draco. “ _I’m giving you what you want: the life you were meant to live. In June of 1980, Draco Lucius Malfoy will be born to Pureblood parents, whose lives are touched by war, but whose allegiances have drifted from the hatred and bigotry rife in their times. Your life will not be touched by war, but with lasting peace, and you will continue to be showered in love and affection and indulgence, but tempered with tolerance and caution. Is it not masterful, little lordling?”_

“This wasn’t what I wanted!” Draco cried petulantly as the white of King’s Cross sped towards him, inevitable, unstoppable, definite. “You cheated me!”

But his cries fell on deaf ears, for Death did not wait on King’s Cross, and now, there was nothing for Draco to do but to board the train.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Cahf ah nafl mglw'nafh hh' ahor syha'h ah'legeth, ng llll or'azath syha'hnahh n'ghftephai n'gha ahornah ah'mglw'nafh
> 
> R'LYEHIAN (the Lovecraftian language for Cthulhu) translates to _That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die._. This is the couplet in in _the Call of Cthulhu_ , quoted from the Necronomicon. I used it as the spell to wake the Old Ones living within Harry to take Voldemort's life permanently.
> 
> ** Whatever happiness and joy was in my life, came from the magic. So, to the magic, I give you.”
> 
> Direct quote lifted from _The Test_ , short story about Palin Majere's testing in the Tower of High Sorcery in Palanthas. The story can be found in the anthology book _The Magic of Krynn_ (Dragonlance). This is like the single most extra line ever uttered by a fictional character that I have ever read.


	32. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is unfair to call this part an Epilogue, as it's in fact, an actual chapter to close the story. I tried to tie up as many loose ends as I could.

**October 1979**

_Dear Padfoot,_

_How’s the Unspeakable training going? I know you can’t tell me, even though I literally know everything else about you down to what color underpants you favor on which occasion (don’t lie, Pads, you wear the red one with the Snitches every time we had a game! It was your good luck charm! Kinda makes me wish we’d both gone into Quidditch, but ah, I know where your heart lies._

_Speaking of Quidditch, have I told you I’m going to make starting line-up???? I know right!! Stop the presses, James Potter is going to be starting Chaser for Puddlemere United! In less than a year, mate!!!!_

_Dad thinks I should’ve taken the Tornados offer instead of PudU since it’s closer to Somerset Chateau, but I don’t think I could bear to be away from Lily for very long. Her dad tore me a new one though, because… and I hope you’re sitting down and ready for this, Pads… I’M GONNA BE A DAD!_

_I mean I mean I mean_

_We all knew I was gonna be one eventually, but Pads, this is really happening. This is really really happening! Do you think it’s gonna be a boy? Should I still name him Harry? Don’t look like that, I know it makes you sad, Pads, it makes me feel horrible too, but Harry gave us all something wonderful, what he’s done for us. I know Moony feels just as terrible about everything, but Pads, you gotta understand, it isn’t Moony’s fault. He thinks you hate him since last year. I know you don’t, and I know you love Moony too, but could you maybe write him back? He’s really torn up about everything that’s happened._

_I miss you, you know. You never come see us anymore, not since Moony had to move with us. Lily’s still working on her Mastery to finish that potion, but now that we’ve got a bun in the oven, that might have to wait a bit. Moony’s patient and ever so grateful and ever so Moony about everything. You know what he’s like._

_I really miss you and I hope you get a break from training soon. I could maybe see you sometime then, between the Wizengamot sessions and training, seems like you ended up being the busiest Marauder after all. Remember back in third year when you told me if you had to be chained to your family legacy, you were going to be a useless layabout and live off the family wealth? How the times have changed, Mr Padfoot. I still can’t believe everyone has to call you Lord Black and the Wizengamot clerk bows when you pass. Dad says the clerk doesn’t even do that for him._

_I miss you so much and I hope you write back soon. It can’t be healthy for you to hole yourself up in the Ministry’s basement like that._

_Love, Prongs_

**April 1980**

_Dear Sirius,_

_Thanks for the card and the cauldron cakes. I couldn’t handle the pudding; didn’t agree with the morning sickness, but James made himself sick from scarfing it all down. He says you’ve broken his diet and now he’s going to have to spent double the amount of time in training to work it all off. Quidditch players, I’ll never understand them!_

_Speaking of the morning sickness, it’s mostly gone now. I didn’t think I’d ever be glad to enter my final trimester since it mostly means no Potions work, and a lot more sitting down with my sore, water-logged ankles, but at least the morning sickness finally went away. I can’t imagine what I would have done, what with all the cravings and the sickness going on at the same time._

_I really think it’s going to be a boy, and I know James told you that we’re still leaning on naming him after Harry. Please don’t be mad or sad or anything. We loved him too. Do you think you would still want to be the godfather? This little Harry won’t be anything like the Harry we all came to know and love, but without that Harry, my baby wouldn’t be able to be born in a world without fear. I just think it’d be poetic._

_Listen, I know you’re still wallowing in some sort of depressive fugue, because there’s no way you actually want to be sealed up in that mausoleum of an office in the Department of Mysteries, but please, Sirius, we all miss you and hope you can make it to at least a weekend luncheon once. James hasn’t seen you since you started working for the DoM. I think he’s going to go stir-crazy without Padfoot as his partner-in-crime. I think even_ I _miss you since you’re the only person who can probably keep my boyfriend sane. Sane enough to stop with this marriage nonsense, at least until I’ve popped out his sprog. I’m not getting into a wedding dress looking like a beached whale, and you have to help me convince James of that. He’s got it into his head that he’s not doing right by me by us not getting married before the baby comes. I told him not to let my dad bully him into anything, but I think even Mr Potter’s telling him stuff. Please, you_ have _to come around and make him see reason, otherwise I_ will _abscond on the wedding day!_

_Kidding aside, we do miss you, Sirius. It’s been so long since we’ve seen each other and we want to be there for you, because we know you’re still unhappy and depressed and working yourself ragged isn’t a way to handle grief, love._

_Xoxo, Lily_

**June 1980**

_Dear Sirius,_

_I’m sorry you have to keep getting letters like this and I’ll try to keep it short. I just wanted to say again that I’m terribly sorry that Harry did what he’d done and turned me back into a human. I swear, Sirius, I never meant for him to do that. I_ didn’t _expect him to do that, though maybe we all should have. He was so depressed after what happened in Little Hangleton. I know I was a wolf for so much of that time, but I could feel how much he blamed himself for everything, even though he shouldn’t have._

_I’m sorry, Padfoot. If I could turn it all back and switch places, even if I had to stay a wolf forever, I’d do it in a heartbeat if it meant Harry didn’t have to die and you didn’t have to be this sad._

_Love, Moony_

_Dear Sirius,_

_I don’t know what Prongs and Moony are talking about, I swear it! I didn’t give anyone anything, you have to believe me._

_Love, Wormtail_

_Wormtail,_

_Never write to me again, if you value your life._

_Sirius, Lord Black._

* * *

**July 31, 1980**

The Death Chamber in the Department of Mysteries was by far the one room none of the other Unspeakables liked to linger at. People came and did their observations or ran their tests and studies and left as soon as their feet could carry them out. No one wanted to be around death and that blasted whispering Veil, not if they could help it. No one, that is, except Unspeakable Lord Black.

Sirius sat on the bench in the deepest step, closest to the Veil, his eyes closed, listening for the occasional murmur of a distant voice he would hear if he sat close enough, listened hard enough. He didn’t know what the voice said, only that it sounded like Harry. It was always so far away, so faint, and more than once, especially when he’d first started working here, he’d been tempted to just give in to his grief and step through the archway. It wouldn’t have been like him at all, Sirius loved life too much, but he’d been so depressed then that anything seemed to be better than the emptiness he felt since Harry died in the spring on 1978.

The events of that fateful day had torn not only him, but all his friends apart. When Harry died, he’d been horribly depressed, but he also knew he’d been unspeakably unfair to Remus, who had only very vague memories of the time he’d spent as a dire wolf. And yet Sirius couldn’t help but feel that if Harry hadn’t traded his life for Remus, he would have lived. It wasn’t like Remus was going to die. He was just… well he was just going to remain a wolf for the rest of his life.

Sirius felt awful for it. None of it had been Remus’ fault, but he couldn’t stomach looking at his friend. That irrational grudge, and of course, Sirius’ absolute hatred of Peter for stupidly giving away information on Harry to one of Voldemort’s sympathizers spelled the doom of the Marauders in their seventh year. Sirius couldn’t countenance the sight of Peter, was stupidly glad when James and Remus saw it his way, _fucking finally_ , and though he couldn’t help but feel horrible about it, he didn’t think he could stand looking at Remus either.

Both Remus and James were infinitely understanding. Remus tried to stay as far away from him as possible, even though there were times when it wasn’t possible to do that in such close quarters as a boy’s dorm in a magical boarding school. Sirius kept his head down instead, and hunkered over his studies in a most un-Sirius Black way ever. He’d finished top of the entire class of 1979 beating out Lily, who’d been in the running for their class valedictorian.

When school ended, he’d gone straight to the Department of Mysteries, where he’d been offered a full-time a position after he’d submitted his final thesis, entitled _Theories on the Foundations of Magic and the Relation to the Master of Death_ , for the Magical Theory class. He’d skipped the trainee position, unlike what he’d told James. Here, he was Unspeakable Lord Black, and he was Master of the Death Chamber, where the DoM stored the three artifacts that made up the Deathly Hallows. It was strange to know that there were duplicates of two of the Hallows out there, in the wider Wizarding World, besides the ones hidden here in the Death Chamber. Sirius had never touched them, even though once, he’d tried to see if he could speak with Harry’s soul using the Resurrection Stone. There had been nothing. In his hands, the stone was just a rock. It didn’t feel remotely magical.

James still had his Invisibility Cloak, retrieved from the Room of Requirement after the events of the Battle of Blackheath Abbey, as it had come to be called, although Sirius had just called it _The Wedding_. The one hidden here in the Death Chamber was the one Harry had with him when he died. Sirius understood it was one of those things that Death had brought from Harry’s collapsing timeline in 2017, the same as the Elder Wand.

He mused silently that perhaps Harry knew what he was on about, dying in 1978. Lily would be giving birth soon and if it was a boy, that boy was going to be Harry.

He looked down on the bench beside him. Apart from the Hallows, he’d taken Harry’s grootslang with him. He didn’t speak Parseltongue, but having the snake around made him feel a little better, like he had a tiny piece of Harry left with him, even after he’d died. He hadn’t even left a body. Death had taken him when he’d gone, leaving Sirius with nothing but the remnants of the absurd fact that Harry Potter had lived in 1977-1978: a scrap piece of parchment that was a copy of a part of the check list that Harry intended to accomplish in the timeline he’d fallen into, the Hallows he’d held to himself as he’d died, Griselda the snake. There was almost nothing else beside that.

He would have gone on thinking more about Harry, lulled as he was by the distant sound of his voice that Sirius always fancied he could hear this close from the Veil of Death, when the silence of the Death Chamber was interrupted by the glowing silver form of a fox Patronus, sailing through the air and stopping in front of Sirius. The Patronus sniffed at him, as if snootily judging the fact that Sirius had spent the night in the Death Chamber yet again, and not returned to the fancy London flat he rented near Westminster Street, before it opened its mouth and spoke in Regulus’ snooty voice:

“ _Evans is about to give birth, and unless you want a Malfoy to become her child’s godfather, you_ will _make yourself available at St Mungo’s._ ” The Patronus sniffed again, and circled before him before disappearing into thin air.

Sirius sighed. He didn’t want to leave the Death Chamber. He thought he could hear the lull and call of Harry’s voice, even though by now, he mostly knew it was all just in his head. Griselda hissed at him as he dawdled, and he sighed again, getting up.

“Do you think James’ boy will have Harry’s soul? He _is_ going to be born on the exact same date, the exact same time,” he mused to the snake, who hissed and slithered up his jeans-covered leg under his robes. He’d taken to wearing trousers under his robes now—it was convenient when he didn’t feel like hanging around Wizarding London, and he could just toss the Unspeakable robes off and walk out into the muggle streets with none the wiser. Still, it was a riot to feel it snaking up his hip and torso, to settle at his neck. He smiled as he imagined Griselda telling him that yes, probably. This boy was going to be Harry James Potter, of the one true timeline remaining now. And he was going to grow up happy, with both of his parents, probably with Sirius as his godfather and—

“No, he won’t.”

Sirius started and cast around towards the door, but the voice that answered his thoughts didn’t come from the direction of the exit but from the Veil. It wasn’t the distant sibilant whispers that he’d come to recognize as the sounds of the dearly departed trying and failing to communicate when a loved one was near. This voice was solid, formed and real. It sounded like Harry, but not really. It was deeper, darker… older.

The sound of boots clicking on stone made the fanciful notion that this must all just be a fever dream shatter. Sirius spun around, horror and trepidation filling and closing up his throat as he realized there was something… someone… emerging from the Veil, and the mists parted to reveal a tall, thin man with wild, unkempt black hair, a neatly trimmed beard, wearing a dark denim trousers, a crumpled white dress shirt that looked like the man had had one too many drinks and rolls in the sack. The thin black tie was loose and coming undone, but the worn black leather jacket, Sirius would recognize anywhere, along with the sharp green eyes, the round glasses and the scar on his forehead. He’d bought that jacket for the Halloween Ball, to piss off his little brother, and those eyes! Those eyes he’d stared into—seen them filled with fear and horror, self-loathing and recrimination, amusement and enjoyment, passion and worship. There was no mistaking it.

“H—Harry?”

The man’s face broke into a warm smile that Sirius would have recognized anywhere _._ _Anywhere_. It was Harry, and yet, it was not. He looked… well, not like the skinny, gaunt teenager who looked like a good wind could knock him down. This Harry was older, powerfully built, though he retained the slenderness of physique that was a hallmark of the Potter gene, along with the unkempt hair. He had laugh lines around his mouth, and the hint of crow’s feet crinkling the corners of his eyes as he came up to Sirius and grinned.

“Hello, love,” he said, and that _voice_ was everything that Sirius needed to hear. It _was_ Harry, older, healthier, happier, it seemed, looking the way he should have when he first appeared in Hogwarts, instead of that skinny, gawky, depressed teenager with too much magic burning under his skin.

Sirius couldn’t stop himself as he launched himself into the man before him, his robes fluttering as he leapt and tackled Harry, _his_ Harry, not the baby about to be born in St Mungo’s, into his arms, burying his face into his neck, and utterly unable to stop the tears from springing unbidden to his previously perfectly dry eyes. His Harry was here. He was back. He was solid in Sirius’ arms.

“Oof!” Harry exclaimed and they both would have fallen except Sirius was too skinny to knock this man down as he caught him in hard, sinewy, muscled arms. “Careful now, wouldn’t want to fall back into the Veil. Death might not be easier to bargain with a second time.”

Sirius didn’t hear him as he sobbed into his neck and nearly crushed Griselda between them. “You’re here! You’re back!”

Harry hugged him close and pressed his lips against Sirius’ temple. His beard prickled his skin a bit. Sirius had always had somewhat sensitive skin; it had been a thing with the Blacks anyway, with how pale they were.

“Hush, love, I’m sorry I took so long, but I’m here. You wouldn’t believe what a pedant Death could be when I tried bargaining back for a life with you. He talks like a lawyer and works like an accountant, and then he wonders why none of the other Old Ones like him, what with him going on and on about ripping through Magic and Time and Space Continuum. Like there was anything to rip through—there isn’t any other timeline to fuck up, and magic doesn’t rip with the Veil,” Harry muttered to himself, chuckled darkly. “And all this, considering _I’_ m his Master. What a nightmare to work with.” He smiled as he pushed Sirius back a tiny bit. Gentle hands caressed his face, gentle fingers caught his tears as they fell. “Let me see, you love. I hadn’t quite imagined that after two years, you’d still look as beautiful as when I first saw you in that Curse-breaking class.”

Sirius went to swipe at his nose, which he was sure was red and full of snot, but Harry leaned forward to kiss him, and fuck but he kissed exactly the same way his Harry did, heated and passionate and so so in love with Sirius. Harry swallowed his sobs, and sucked on his bottom lip, and flicked his tongue that had gone shy from years of no practice, with his. Sirius felt like he was falling into an abyss from which he might never return. _Harry was back._

Harry broke the kiss when Sirius started to moan and grind against him, smiling affectionately and gentle rubbing the pinkened skin around Sirius’ mouth and jaw. He was going to get beard burn. He loved it already.

“So,” Harry said as he threw an arm around Sirius’ shoulders and started to lead him out of the Death Chamber, “we should be heading out to Mungo’s first. I’ll be damned if the other me has Lucius Malfoy as a godfather. I’d take Moony or even Regulus, if you didn’t want to, but a Malfoy may be going too far. And then, we should probably have a good long word with my dad and grandfather, seeing how the baby and I can’t be Harry James Potter at the same time, and dad definitely can’t be my dad now, since I’m sixteen years older than him at least, not to mention I’m technically not alive, just that I’m also technically not dead. I don’t think the Master of Death could be either.”

“What does that mean?” Sirius asked around his hiccuping sobs. Harry seemed to find this infinitely adorable and kissed his temple again.

Harry shrugged, not appearing to be overly concerned in defining exactly what he was. “Eh. Death and Magic weren’t getting in an agreement as to what I was supposed to be. I suppose being an eldritch being doesn’t entirely mean you’re good and wise, just that you know things. I didn’t want to dwell on it since we’d already debated so much.” Sirius nodded, and touched his hands to Harry’s beard. Harry’s lips twitched up into a lopsided smile. “Without the rift in magic to fuck me up, I suppose some things had to change.”

“You seem… different,” he said, not quite knowing what it was that changed. Definitely, Harry appeared older, more like his age as Sirius should have known him, but there was something indefinable in the way he carried himself, the way that his eyes shone. There were things that were the same, of course, or Sirius would not have recognized him—the way he smiled at Sirius, the way he held him, the way he kissed. It was almost like this Harry hadn’t been touched by the horrors that had surrounded his life when he’d been alive… or no, not that he wasn’t touched by them, but that he’d made peace with them. This Harry was no tortured teenager still muddling about endless terrors he’d had to face. This Harry was at peace.

Harry ruffled the back of his hair, in almost a mirror of the way James would do it, except he looked a bit sheepish and not at all the cocky, self-assured way James had about him. “Er, well, you know how time passes very differently when you’re dead? Or I suppose… not dead, but… you know what I mean? Turns out Time really _is_ a construct in—wherever I was. It doesn’t exist. A minute or an hour would pass and it would still be an eternity. You don’t… I don’t seem _old_ , do I?”

Sirius touched the smile lines, admired the way Harry was tan instead of pale, clear-eyed instead of tortured. “No, no, I like it,” he whispered. “Does this mean you’re back for good?”

“Of course, I’m back for good. Told Death we could work out a split of the cull of souls better if I’m around. Makes things interesting.”

Sirius thought back to his research, all of the strange magical inconsistencies that Harry’s presence represented for the wizarding world. “But… what about the magic? Didn’t, I don’t know, your presence meant there’s a rift in magic on earth?” It wasn’t that he didn’t _want_ Harry here. Merlin only knew that he would sacrifice the world to have Harry back. But it wouldn’t be… fair… he supposed, and that was such a James word to use… not to ask the difficult questions. Maybe he had been working too much.

Harry only shrugged. “Doesn’t exist anymore, does it? I mean, I died already. Mortal tethers gone and all that. Returning here doesn’t break anything since it isn’t about earthly magic anymore.”

Sirius’ eyes widened. “But—“

Harry cut him off with a kiss, his eyes sparkling in mischief. “I know it’s a lot to take in love, but you don’t have to think on it too long. Merlin knows I spent eternity and a half hammering out something workable with Death to make this possible.”

Sirius felt something warm and right exploding in his chest. It was real. It had to be real. Hi reached up to kiss Harry again. “I love you, you know,” he murmured against his lips.

Harry kissed him back with equal passion, and they were panting and flushed by the time he let him go. “I know, love. I know.” The sparkle in the smile he shot Sirius told him, in no uncertain terms, that he loved him too, and the two of them started out again, before Harry smirked and stopped as he spotted the display case near the exit back to the main door that led to the revolving corridors of the different chambers in the DoM.

“Oh, good you managed to get my wand back. I could never get the hang of all that kissing magic that Death is constantly on about.” The Elder Wand leaped into his hands, singing and exulting to once more be in the hands of the Master. Sirius quite understood how the wand must have felt.

“Now,” Harry said as they exited the Ministry and walked out into the July sunshine. The air smelled of dust and the summer heat of London, and Sirius hated being out in the sun these days, but with him tucked close to Harry’s side, he didn’t think he could find a more perfect day to be out in the sun. “Do you think this little baby’s gonna be friends at all with Narcissa’s boy? I have ideas, and I think Draco could use a bit of friendly rivalry early in his life so he knows exactly what disappointment feels like before he makes funky wagers with Old Beings beyond the comprehension of human minds…”

As Harry prattled on about what he wanted to do in this timeline, get back into working as an Auror, maybe help Fleamont in his responsibilities as Lord Potter, raise the grootslang still twined around Sirius’ neck… marry Sirius Black… Sirius didn’t think there could have been anything else that he could have asked for. James and Lily were having their baby (out of wedlock, what a scandal!), Moony was back into being a man, who still had a furry little problem (Lily was definitely close to finding a cure, though!), there were no Dark Lords or Orders of the Phoenix to fight wars for or against, and Sirius Black had his boyfriend back.

All was well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, you know what, I was all ready to rip your hearts out and if I was actually getting paid to write this, I might have pretended to be a hack GRRM and died on the cross I bore in the previous chapter. Then I remembered this is fanfic and I can do whatever I wanted, including cop the shit out of my own fic because I wanted my ship to sail. I've _aged_ from that time when I felt that if shit got down, there's no way to get it fixed again (which you'd've seen if you followed my writing back in the AFTG fandom; I loved fucking shit up in my fic and _never_ having a fix for _anything_.)
> 
> The only thing other I would like to point out here, I mean besides the fact that James and Lily actually had a baby out of wedlock (Lily's very progressive; but also she ain't gonna pose for any wedding pictures while she's heavily pregnant!) is that considering Narcissa was a year below the Marauders, this means Lucius knocked her up while she was in her seventh year, and she had to give birth to Draco right before she sat her NEWTS. Goddamn, Narcissa is the utter badass in this story. I'm absolutely boggled.
> 
> As this is the last part of the story (the next chapter is just a timeline appendix if you were curious about Harry's life before the events of this fic), I would like to say thank you to everyone who has thus far read and commented and went along with me on this wild fanfic ride! You know, I never imagined I would actually write a Sirius/Harry fic, because my ship is actually Drarry, but the story between them just unfolded so naturally while I wrote that I didn't hesitate to make it the primary ship in this story. In any case, all of you who have commented and liked and enjoyed this fic are the true stars here. Without your wonderful response and encouragement to this story, I probably wouldn't have gotten around to finishing it, as I'm rather known for crashing and burning early when I write fic.
> 
> If you'd like to continue talking Sirius/Harry or just anything Harry Potter with me, drop me a note on my [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/mumuinc). I'd be absolutely frothing at the mouth to talk about my ships and my fandom. I'm like, that desperate for someone to talk to about this since I know no one irl to talk fandom on and also I haven't been out in the sunshine for 8 months now, so I'm like the basement-dwelling sort of fanon who's slightly touched in the head.
> 
> I had a few ficlet-sized ideas I might explore after this (like how do James and Lily react to having 2 Harry Potters in the timeline now? Is Harry BS-ing shit just to get his happily ever after and his presence now just fucks things up again? _Did_ Lupin ever get it on with Vance? Does Sirius murder Wormtail? Does Lucius get into trouble with Lord Black for knocking Narcissa up before she takes her NEWTs? Did Baby Harry grow up to be friends with Baby Draco? Did Regulus ever get his own boyfriend? So many questions to be answered!) but if I don't, trust that there will be tons of other awesome fic ideas out there, and tons of other writers more talented than me. Keep reading fanfic--it's escapist, but we all deserve our escapism sometime.
> 
> ~*air kisses and au revoir*~


	33. Timeline of events in Harry Potter's life after Hogwarts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just in case you were curious, I compiled the sequence of events from Harry's timeline. I had to sometime in the early chapters, when I was going crazy having to reread entire parts of the story so i didn't contradict myself.

  1. **October 30, 1981** \- Voldemort’s Avada Kedavra rebounding on Harry Potter causes a rift in the fabric of magic
  2. **May 2, 1998** \- Battle of Hogwarts - Harry Potter’s death and return to life causes the rift to break wide apart. The hole causes magic to become wonky, and manifests as magical creatures and wizards losing their power, only to have the magic deposited on Harry, which is now the rift’s anchor.
  3. **September 1998** \- Harry Potter joins the Aurors as a trainee
  4. **March 1999 -** Harry Potter takes 6 months studying curse-breaking at the Russian Institute as part of Auror training
  5. **May 30 2000** \- Harry Potter completes Auror training and formally enters the Auror corps
  6. **June 2000** \- Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley wedding
  7. **April 17 2001** \- James Sirius Potter was born
  8. **January 31 2003** \- Scorpius Malfoy was born
  9. **March 23 2003** \- Albus Severus Potter was born
  10. **March 28 2005** \- Lily Luna Potter was born
  11. **January 2006** \- Astoria Malfoy dies - the first victim of the Magical Consumption plague
  12. **October 2006** \- Scorpius Malfoy dies
  13. **2007** \- Dennis Creevey dies of the plague, proving that the Magical Consumption was not a Pureblood blood curse
  14. **December 25 2007** \- Theodore Nott attempts to steal a broken Time Turner, one of the artifacts left in Malfoy Manor. Harry Potter responds to the distress Patronus sent by the Malfoy Manor wards and apprehends Nott, returns the Time Turner to Draco Malfoy
  15. **Feb 2008 -** James Sirius Potter dies; Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley get divorced.
  16. **May 2008** \- Saul Croaker theorizes that the Magical Consumption plague acts like a vacuum that initially siphons magic from a magical creature rendering it either dead (or a Squib if it’s a person), deposits the magic to a 2nd wizard, whose core cannot handle the influx of magic it didn’t own and dies within days of the power transfer. The final power transfer then goes to Harry Potter, who is anchored to the rift, and therefore is a being of pure magic, so he doesn’t age, and he can’t die.
  17. **August 2008** \- Harry Potter resigns from the Aurors; moves to the Department of Mysteries to be researched for the instability of his magical core
  18. **June 2010** \- Lily Luna Potter, Ginny Weasley die of magical consumption
  19. **September 2012** \- Albus Severus Potter die of magical consumption
  20. **June 2008 - 2013** \- Harry Potter decides to die in order to stop the spread of the magical plague from claiming the lives of his remaining children (they die anyway, see above)
  21. **2010** \- Saul Croaker theorizes that the magical rift started at the point of the Battle of Hogwarts when the impossible happened: Harry Potter didn’t die upon being hit by the Killing Curse
  22. **April 2013** \- Saul Croaker dies of magical consumption
  23. **January 1 2014** \- Draco Malfoy meets Harry Potter, who is now Unspeakable J, for the first time to propose fixing the Time Turner. Malfoy wants to fix the Time Turner to return back to a time when Astoria and Scorpius are still alive. Harry Potter realizes that he can use the Time Turner to go back in time to the point where Croaker originally thought the rift in magic opened, which was when Harry Potter didn’t die during the Battle of Hogwarts.
  24. **2015** \- Narcissa Malfoy dies from the Consumption. Her body is found by Lucius, who wastes away from a broken heart, but not before he writes to his son. Draco finds the note too late, and he hangs himself in the Malfoy Manor dungeons, finally consumed by grief that his whole family have died. As he’s in his death throes, Draco has an epiphany when he realizes at what point the break in the fabric of magic first occurred and tries to stop himself from dying. Death hears his plea decides to use him to find and free himself of his Master (Harry, the Master of Death), to claim the soul he’d been cheated out of twice in 1981 and 1998. Draco continues to go about his life as if he were alive, never noticing that his only interactions with people is with Harry Potter, who as Master of Death, can actually see him.
  25. **June 2017** \- Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy fix the Time Turner, but the amount of magic required to activate it was so enormous no ordinary wizard could use it. Harry Potter reveals his identity to Draco Malfoy and uses the Time Turner to go back to the point where he was about to die in the Battle of Hogwarts. Because magic is wonky and Harry is so powerful, he instead cleaves through the fabric separating life and death and lands in King’s Cross, where Dumbledore is talking to 1998 Harry, who has just died and was being given a chance to go back to finish what he started with Voldemort. 2017-Harry doesn’t want to bother stopping 1998-Harry so he instead boards the train to go to die. Instead, because magic, time, space, life and death are all intertwined and tangled now, he’s thrown into Hogwarts on September 1, 1977.




End file.
